


My Stars

by CallieB



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: M/M, Shameless Big Bang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-05 11:39:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 41,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5373956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallieB/pseuds/CallieB
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something's gone wrong with the world, and the stars are going out. Mickey doesn't know why, and frankly he doesn't give a shit; his life has never felt more empty, more worthless. He can't shake the feeling that there's something missing - a life he was supposed to have led, someone he was meant to have met, voices in his head saying things that never happened... And then Lip freaking Gallagher is in front of him, telling him that it's his fault the stars are disappearing. He was supposed to be with Lip's little brother, but he did it wrong - and now he has to go back in time and change the past to the way it was meant to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Closing In

**Author's Note:**

> The beautiful artwork is by the extremely talented likingwhatilikedontmakemeabitch, to whom I am eternally grateful for producing something so amazing for my work :)
> 
> This is my contribution to my very first Shameless Big Bang! Once this is all posted I swear I'll get back to my other fics, but I just got kind of swept up in this one. Enjoy!
> 
> Come find me on tumblr: http://13callieb.tumblr.com/

 

 

There’s nothing about the day to suggest that it’s anything other than ordinary. It’s snowing, which tends to be the norm for mid-November; a carpet of white powder covers the parked cars lining the street, crunching underneath Mickey’s boots as he strides by, gloved hands shoved into his pockets. The sky is a faded greyish-blue, the sun weak in the sky. There’s been some debate as to whether or not this should be a matter of concern; is the sun fading, like the other stars? However, it’s just as likely that it’s merely a normal winter sun, and besides which there’s nothing anyone would be able to do if it _were_ going out, so what’s the point in worrying about it?

That’s been Mickey’s opinion, ever since the stars began blinking out of existence, disappearing as though they had never been there. Not that he’s ever voiced it. Not that anyone’s ever asked him.

Limp red tinsel hangs across the doorframe going into the Kash & Grab, and The Pogues are grumbling out of a battered-looking radio on the counter. Mickey winces as he enters. He hates Christmas songs. Well, he hates Christmas, really. Along with most other holidays. And birthdays. And his whole life. But hey, who’s counting?

Kash himself sits on a stool behind the counter; he leans back warily when he sees Mickey, folding his arms. He’s never really gotten over Mickey punching him in the face that time; it’s pathetic, really. It was four years ago, and he only did it because Kash had the gall to pull a fucking Beretta on him. Mickey hardly ever shoplifts any more. He’s not exactly sure why, other than that it just all seems like too much effort these days.

“Milkovich,” Kash growls in what’s clearly the most threatening tone he can muster. He kind of reminds Mickey of a puppy he once saw his father drowning in the river.

“Kash and Grab,” Mickey replies with a general nod in Kash’s direction. “Got any Slim Jims?”

Kash hesitates – testing, always testing – before gesturing towards a shelf near the back of the store. “New order.”

Mickey doesn’t bother to reply, pulling his jacket a little tighter around himself as he makes his way over to where Kash indicated. Slim Jims. Well, he likes them, and it’ll be something to occupy himself with on the way home. Honestly, it was just the first thing that came into his mind.

For some reason, Mickey’s found himself coming here more often than usual; he’ll be bored or high or just wandering around, and he’ll realise that his feet have brought him to the store again. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say he was being drawn to the place, almost as if pulled by something outside his control. And every time he reaches it, it's the same; he feels the oddest sensation of anticipation as he steps through the door, his eyes automatically roving from the donut stand next to the counter along the shelves of groceries, almost as if he’s looking for something.

Whatever it is his subconscious is hoping to find, it’s never there. That’s when the disappointment sets in, and his stomach plummets down to his feet. And it’s ridiculous, because there’s no reason for him to feel that way. He’s not looking for anything. It’s all just a bit too much like _feelings_ for Mickey.

Yet still he finds himself coming.

Of course, he has to justify it somehow, so he buys a six-pack of Stella to go with his Slim Jims, cracking one open as he pushes back through the jangling door onto the snowy street. The beer is foamy against his lips, warming him as he walks back towards home.

And that’s when he hears his name being called. Not just his last name, either, which is usually how he’s addressed; he figures it’s a combination of the fear that name inspires in the neighbourhood and the fact that there are so many Milkovich boys that no one can really be blamed for getting confused between them. But the voice that calls him now is neither afraid nor uncertain.

“Mickey!”

Mickey turns around, fingers automatically tightening on his bottle in case he needs to use it as a weapon. It doesn’t matter how many years pass by; that instinct never dies.

The caller is a man, around Mickey’s age, that he faintly recognises. He’s a little taller than Mickey, with tufty light brown hair and a weak chin. He’s squeezed his ass into skinny black jeans that makes an eyebrow involuntarily lift on Mickey’s face, but he forces his expression back into neutrality.

“Gallagher, right?” he says. He feels an odd jolt in his stomach as he says the name, but he ignores it. The guy nods, stepping closer so that he’s just a couple of feet away; Mickey squares up to him. “The fuck do you want?”

Gallagher gives a brief smile. “Your help.”

Mickey snorts at that. “The fuck am I supposed to help _you_ with?”

“It’s kind of hard to explain,” Gallagher says. He tugs a cigarette out of his pocket, putting it to his lips.

Mickey sighs, lifting his free hand to rub his forehead. The truth is, without feeling any particular antipathy towards Gallagher, he just doesn’t really care; he’s so fucking tired these days.

“Look, Gallagher—” he begins, and then stops as his stomach lurches again.

 _You did okay, Mickey, you know, you tried. It’s a lot more than most people would do._ It’s Gallagher’s voice.

“You okay?” Gallagher is suddenly standing closer to him than before, the smoke still dangling from his mouth. Mickey shakes his head, more to clear it than in answer to the question.

What the fuck was that? It was like… like a memory. Except it wasn’t a memory, because it never happened. He’s barely even spoken to Gallagher before today. No, not Gallagher.

“Lip,” he tries.

Lip is nodding. “Right,” he says. “That’s right. Are you okay, man?”

“Yeah,” Mickey mutters. “Look, Lip, I gotta go.”

“Hey—” Lip starts, but Mickey waves him away, turning his back on him and beginning to walk in the opposite direction. His head is suddenly killing him.

“Mickey!” Lip calls.

“Fuck off!” he shouts over his shoulder. The pain… It kind of feels like that weird anticipation he sometimes gets in the Kash & Grab, except way, way worse. He finds himself thumping the side of his head with a hand. What the fuck is happening?

“I can help you!” Lip’s words are so unexpected that Mickey actually stops walking, half-turning back to the cocky bastard with an incredulous glare.

“Five fucking minutes ago you were asking for _my_ fucking help, now you think you can help me? What the fuck kind of help do you think I need, bitch?”

Lip strides purposefully over. He’s lit his cigarette by now, smoke coiling up towards the drifting clouds above their heads. “You’re feeling weird, right? Bad headaches? You get them a lot?”

Well, yeah, Mickey’s always suffered from headaches. But that’s no one’s goddamn business, especially not this asshole. He just glares in response.

“I get them too,” Lip tells him. He sighs, holding up his hands. “This is going to sound fucking weird, okay?” He waits.

Mickey gives him bug eyes. “Gallagher, I ain’t got time for this shit.”

“Oh, sure, am I disturbing your busy schedule of… what, exactly?” Lip replies sarcastically.

“Fuck off,” Mickey says instinctively, although the words lack their usual heat. Lip’s got a point. His life… Why has his life felt so fucking pointless recently? Nothing’s changed, exactly; it’s just that he’s suddenly started feeling so… so tired, and old, and like nothing really matters.

He doesn’t bother going on runs with Terry any more. He doesn’t really do anything much, these days; he spends hours lying on his bed staring at the posters taped to the walls, and still more time just wandering around the neighbourhood, smoking and looking for… for what? He’s not looking for anything. He’s just existing.

It’s an empty existence. And he has no idea how that happened.

Lip’s still standing in front of him, waiting. Mickey sighs. “Fine. Fucking fine. _What_?”

Lip exhales. “Okay,” he says, plucking the cigarette from his mouth with his forefinger and thumb. “Do you ever get, like… memories that aren’t memories?”

Mickey narrows his eyes. That sounds suspiciously like what just happened to him. He doesn’t answer, but Lip doesn’t seem to be expecting him to.

“I think we know each other,” he says. He stops, like somehow that’s some kind of dramatic announcement; Mickey just looks at him.

When it doesn’t seem as though he’s going to say anything else, Mickey finally waves a hand. “And?”

Lip gives an exasperated little sigh, as though he’s annoyed that Mickey isn’t keeping up with this extremely weird conversation. He takes another puff on his smoke. “Not like this,” he says impatiently. “I mean, yeah, we know each other now. But I think… we’re supposed to know each other better. We’re, fuck, I don’t know, friends.”

Okay, so the kid’s clinically insane. Not really that much a surprise, when he thinks about it; anyone with a brain that big is bound to have some wiring gone wrong in it. Mickey takes a step backwards. “That’s fascinating stuff, Gallagher, but I filled my quota of crazy for today sat next to Cuckoo Conrad on the El, so I’mma get the fuck home, alright?” He’s backing away, turning yet again to head back to his house.

There was a day when this would have been enough for him to start a fight, but today just the idea of it makes Mickey feel exhausted. Which frightens him, because since when is a Milkovich too tired for a fight?

Lip doesn’t seem too surprised by his reaction. He actually looks somewhat amused, drawing in a large lungful of smoke from his cigarette. “You know where I live if you want to know more,” he says. Then he wheels around and walks off.

For a second, Mickey just watches him go. The whole conversation, if you can call it that, has been just about the most surreal experience of his life; he files it away under shit to think about later, and carries on walking. The snow is getting heavier now, the clouds thickening overheard as the sun gradually wanes away, and Mickey’s glad to get indoors by the time he finally gets home. He kicks off his boots and unwinds the scarf from around his neck as he throws himself down onto the sofa.

“Fuck have you been?” Terry snaps. He’s sitting at the kitchen table eating a plate of scrambled eggs with Tony, Colin and Mandy; Mickey rolls his eyes, safe behind the kitchen wall where his father can’t see.

“Out,” he answers. Terry grunts at this, but obviously can’t be bothered to push it, shovelling a forkful of food into his mouth. Mickey lets his head drop onto the back of the sofa, closing his eyes.

_I’ll fucking kill you!_

His head snaps up again. Because while Terry has frequently threatened death to all his children, he’s never done so while charging at full speed across The Alibi at Mickey, an expression that can only be described as _murderous_ on his face.

Now where the hell did that come from?

He jumps to his feet; Mandy, who’s in the process of taking empty plates to the sink, turns and frowns at him. And there it goes again.

_You know what? Nothing’s ever your problem. For once, you know, make something your problem._

That’s it. Third time’s a charm. He can’t take this shit any more. He snatches up the carelessly tossed scarf from the floor, throwing it back around his neck.

“You’re going out again?” Mandy’s voice is harsh and scratchy. It’s been almost four years since Mickey’s heard it any other way, but it still hits him like a whip. He pushes the sensation aside. Since when did he start fucking analysing everything he was feeling?

“Yeah,” he answers without looking at her, tugging his boots back on.

“Where?” he hears her ask, but he’s already halfway out the door, so he pretends not to have heard, letting it fall closed behind him.

He doesn’t really know how to answer that question. At least, he knows where he’s going; he just doesn’t know how to explain it to Mandy. She’d think he was crazy if he told her about the memories that aren’t memories.

And Lip... well, he was talking pretty fucking crazy, but he seems to know what's happening to Mickey. Mickey doesn't like asking for help, but he likes these fake memories even less. And if it turns out that the smartass really is just full of shit, well, at least he can punch him.

It's only been a few minutes, but it seems like it's even colder as Mickey half-jogs over to the Gallagher house. He only knows where it is because everyone knows the Gallaghers live next door to Tony Markovich. The sky is darkening quickly as the sun sets behind the El, and Mickey clutches his jacket a little tighter around himself.

Fuck Lip. Fuck him for making Mickey feel so _weak_.

Except Lip hasn't really made him feel weak. He's been feeling weak for days now, weak and listless and so fucking empty, as though something important is missing from his life. But he pushes that thought away, because it's too difficult and complicated to think about, and marches up to the front door of the ramshackle house, ignoring the inert form of Frank lying face-down in the snow a few feet away.

After a pause, the door opens; a tall, slim woman a few years older than him stands in the doorway. Again, Mickey feels the vague recognition of someone he's seen around the neighbourhood but never actually spoken to; she folds her arms around the cup of coffee she's holding, raising an eyebrow without speaking.

"'m looking for Lip," he mumbles.

She turns to look over her shoulder into the house. "Lip!" she screeches. Then she turns back to him. "Come in."

 This time, Mickey has enough forewarning to feel a flip of anxiety turn his stomach over; there's nothing he can do, though, before the memory attacks him. Only this time, the voice is his own.

 _Don't fucking tell me what's impossible! We're taking care of him here, you, me,_ us. _He's fucking family._

Fiona - yes, that's her name, Fiona - is kind of staring at him when he snaps out of it. She looks mildly curious, but doesn't say anything as she moves backwards to let him in. He thinks of the way she looked at him in that memory... Her eyes were wide, frustrated, sad. He's never spoken to her before in his life. Never had anything or anyone to talk to her about. Why does he have that image, as crystal clear in his mind as though it was happening right now? Who was he talking about?

He shakes his head, stepping through the front door into a small untidy living room. He wasn't talking about anyone, because it never happened.

Lip comes bounding down the stairs, stopping short at the bottom of them as he sees Mickey. Then his face splits into a grin so smug that Mickey is roused enough from his usual apathy to want to punch him.

"Thought I might see you again," he says, sauntering towards Mickey.

Mickey takes a step back. "Yeah, yeah, whatever," he says, his hand flapping vaguely in front of Lip's face. "Just..." He stops. How do you ask someone you barely know to explain something you don't understand?

Fiona moves between them, going into the kitchen; Lip gestures up the stairs with his chin. "You want to come up?"


	2. Midnight City

 

 

By now, Mickey is almost accustomed to the unnatural feeling; it bubbles up through his chest, the memory exploding across his brain before he can even pause to take a breath.

_Was I just invited to a sleepover?_

But this time it isn't Lip's voice, or even his own. This is a voice he doesn't recognise at all, and there is no accompanying vision to give him a face to put to it. It's a strong, smooth voice, and something about it sends a shiver running from the back of his neck straight down his spine. It also, inexplicably, makes his dick twitch in his pants.

"You okay?" It's Lip. Mickey shakes his head so hard it hurts.

"Yeah," he answers. Lip raises his eyebrows, but he doesn't comment on the obvious lie, turning to walk back up the stairs. Mickey tugs off his gloves as he follows, looking with interest at the baseball bat hanging on the wall as he passes it.

Lip leads him down a short hall into a bedroom containing several more beds than should have reasonably been able to fit in it; a small child sits on the one underneath the window, playing cards with an older girl kneeling on the floor. They look up as Lip and Mickey come in, and the child slides off the bed and approaches Lip, who crouches down to give him a high five.

"Hey, buddy," he says. He looks up at Mickey. "My brother and sister," he says by way of explanation, standing up again. He jerks his head towards the door, and the girl - she looks about fourteen or fifteen - gathers up the cards strewn across the bed.

"Come on, Liam," she says. She stands up, revealing a hefty baby bump underneath her blouse; the child still standing by Lip goes over to take her hand, and they leave the room. Lip closes the door behind them.

Mickey decides he's had enough of the dicking around. Determinedly, he unzips his jacket, shrugging it off and laying it across a chest of drawers against the wall. "Okay, Gallagher," he says. "You gonna tell me what the fuck's up with this shit?"

It's not the most coherent sentence in the world, but Lip nods anyway, backing up to sit on the edge of the bed. "This is going to sound pretty batshit, you know," he warns.

"Yeah, got that," Mickey says impatiently, folding his arms. Lip cracks a smile.

"Okay," he says. He takes a breath, and then exhales. "Okay," he says again. "What's your opinion on parallel worlds?"

Whatever Mickey might have imagined him to say, that sentence wasn't even on the fucking radar. He blinks. "What?"

"Told you it'd sound crazy," Lip says. He fumbles in a pocket for a cigarette, holding one out to Mickey; he takes it slowly, still frowning at Lip.

He says: "Didn't take you for a sci-fi fan, Gallagher," and is pleased with how steady his voice sounds.

"I'm not," Lip says with a huffing laugh. "I'm working at a research lab at college."

Mickey can feel an eyebrow creeping up on his face. "You're doing research on fucking parallel worlds?"

Lip takes a drag on his cigarette. "Originally we were looking at this issue with the stars, you know? The rest just spiralled."

"Okay, hold the fucking phone," Mickey interrupts. "The stars? You mean this shit with the stars going out? The fuck has that got to do with fucking... parallel worlds?" He feels ridiculous just saying it, but Lip doesn't appear to be laughing.

"Well, we started by examining the ripples caused by the collision of bubble universes through the cosmic microwave background radiation..." He trails off, scratching off. "Look, do you really want me to fucking explain all this? No offence, but if you're not a scientist you're not going to get it anyway."

Mickey glares at him. "Use small words," he spits.

Lip gives a long-suffering sigh. "Fine," he says. "We've been using telescopes to study space, and we've discovered a link between the stars going out and the existence of a parallel world. With me so far?"

"Are you telling me you've... like, proved the fucking multiverse theory?" Mickey asks. At Lip's surprised expression, he shrugs defiantly. "What? I can't watch a fucking TED talk?"

Lip holds up his hands. "Okay, okay! No, this isn't the multiverse theory. Our theory is... different."

"Different how?"

"This theory states that there's only supposed to be _one_ universe, but something went wrong, and a second, parallel world broke off from the original one." He pauses. "Our world."

Mickey holds up a hand for him to stop. "Wait, wait. You're saying _our_ world is the fucking parallel? Like... the fake one?"

"Something like that," Lip agrees.

"Alright, just hold up," Mickey says. He stumbles over to a chair beside the window, sinking heavily into it. His head is spinning from what Lip is saying, but somehow the feeling of incredulity is gone. He no longer doubts Lip's sanity. Somewhere, on some level, he realises that he believes him.

At last, he looks up; Lip is still sitting on the bed, watching him think. "Okay," Mickey says. "Alright, go on."

Lip nods, resuming the narrative. "Okay. So what the team I'm working with has been doing is narrowing down what went wrong to make us split off from the real world." He hesitates. "This is the part you're not going to like."

"What, because the rest of it is all so fucking normal?" Mickey says derisively. "Just fucking spill it, Gallagher."

"It's you," Lip says.

For a few moments, there is complete silence in the room; Mickey can hear the sound of a car driving past outside the window, the laughter of its occupants drifting along after it. He stands up abruptly, walking over to look outside; Frank is no longer visible, although a bulge in the snow reveals his position.

"Mickey?" Lip says. Mickey doesn't turn around. It's hard to identify what he's feeling, because about a million different thoughts are clamouring for his attention, but one instinct overrides the rest.

He swivels unexpectedly, and decks Lip in the chin.

Lip crumples back onto the bed, clutching his face. "Fuck," he mumbles. Mickey rolls his eyes; Lip looks up at him. "Feel better?"

"Yes, actually," Mickey replies.

Lip pulls himself back up to a sitting position, his fingers still clutching his half-smoked cigarette; his lower lip is bleeding a little, but other than that he looks unscathed. Mickey walks deliberately back to his chair and sits down. He raises his eyebrows, sitting back with crossed arms. Waiting for Lip to explain himself.

He takes a long drag first. At last, exhaling smoke, he says: "Look, don't fucking ask me how we worked it out, because honestly I don't even understand it all myself. But it's you." For the hundredth fucking time, he hesitates. "You and... my brother."

Mickey frowns. "Your brother? That kid who was just in here?" But even as he says it, he knows, somehow, that that's not who Lip is talking about. Something is rushing in his stomach, setting his ears buzzing. And fuck, there it goes again.

 _What you and I have makes me free_.

That's his own voice. He's never spoken those words. Can't imagine a situation where he would. But they nevertheless ring, crystal clear, inside his head.

"Not Liam," Lip is saying. "Ian. You ever met him?"

Ian. Just the name is enough to send tingles all over his skin. _No_ , he's never met Ian before. But even as he thinks it, another vision slams into his brain, and somehow this one is brighter, more vibrant, more vivid than any of the others.

 _You love me, and you're gay_.

Fuck. _Fuck_. Just the words, the fake words that no one has ever said to him, are enough to send him spiralling. His hands come up to cup around his head, and without really knowing how he finds himself on his feet.

Lip stands up as well. "Mickey? What did you see?"

"Fuck off!" Mickey bites out harshly. "Fuck _off_!"

He's panicking. Freaking the fuck out, right here in Lip Gallagher's shitty little bedroom, over a memory that isn't even fucking real. Because this kid, this stupid fucking kid kneeling on the ground with blood running from his nose, has said things that should never be said out loud. Things that will get Mickey fucking killed. He's not even real, he's just a figment of Mickey's imagination, but he's got Mickey more scared than any real person ever has before.

"The fuck did you do to me?" he yells at Lip.

"Mickey, calm down," Lip says loudly. Mickey stops pacing the room - he hadn't even realised he _had_ been pacing the room - and stares at him, his fists bunching by his sides, his breaths coming out in thick pants.

"What the _fuck_ , Gallagher?" he spits.

"What did you _see_?" Lip insists.

"Fuck off."

"Was it my brother?"

Mickey folds his arms so tightly that they tingle. "Is your brother some fucking scrawny ginger kid?"

"Not so scrawny these days, but yeah, pretty much," Lip replies.

"Fuck." To his utter horror, Mickey feels tears pricking at the corners of his eyes; he swings around, willing them away.

"It was him, wasn't it? Mickey, you have to fucking tell me, man," Lip says from behind him.

Mickey wheels back to him. "I don't have to tell you shit!" he shouts, hating the faint tremble in his voice. "Fuck you, Lip. Just take this shit away!"

Lip frowns at him, shaking his head slightly. "I can't."

"What?" Mickey says angrily. "You fucking said you could help me!"

"Yeah, not by taking away the memories!" Lip says. "Jeez, Mickey, I get them too, you know. I know they're no fucking fun. But they're real. You can't get rid of them."

"How can they be fucking real?"

Lip sighs. "They're what life... what life is supposed to look like. This world is wrong. Something went wrong, and we're living the wrong life. We have to get back to the real world."

"The real world... Fuck, Gallagher, this is the craziest fucking shit I've ever heard. Fuck!" Mickey rubs his forehead, sinking back into his chair.

"Yeah, tell me about it," Lip says with a wry laugh. "Look, Mickey, I know this all sounds nuts, okay? But you know it's the truth."

He doesn't want to admit it. But he does know it's the truth. He can feel it, radiating all the way to his bones.

"Alright," he says cautiously. "The fuck has all this got to do with me?"

"Depends how you feel about fate," Lip replies.

"Fate," Mickey repeats doubtfully.

"Yeah, like... things that are meant to happen. Destiny. Fate, whatever."

Mickey stared at him. "Where the fuck do you even _get_ all this shit from?"

"Doctor Who," Lip replies promptly.

"Fuck off."

Lip laughs. "Christ knows, man," he says. "But that's the theory. There are some things that are meant to happen, and one of them didn't, and it... fuck, I don't know, like fucking destroyed the universe, or some shit."

"Yeah, and?"

"And," Lip says, "the thing that didn't happen was something you were supposed to do."

Well, now Mickey _knows_ Lip is fucking crazy. He laughs scornfully, although the sound is scratchier than he intended. "Me. You think the fucking world split, or whatever, because of me? Fuck off."

Lip shrugs. "Why not you, man?"

"Because... because... fuck, man, I'm Mickey fucking Milkovich!" Honestly, Mickey doesn't understand the question; how can Lip possibly think someone like _him_ could have any sort of effect on the universe? A thought occurs to him. "Was I, like, supposed to kill someone who goes on to be the next fucking Hitler?"

Lip chokes back a laugh. "No."

"Then you've got the wrong guy," Mickey replies instantly. "No fucking way am I part of some fucking... fucking fated event. My life is seriously not that fucking important, okay?"

"Yeah, I'm sure a whole research lab full of scientists with multiple fucking degrees are wrong and you're right," Lip snaps. "I never said you were important, Mickey. But something you didn't do was."

"What didn't I fucking do?"

"I don't know, exactly," Lip says, his voice calming down again. "The guys I'm working with want you to come in for some testing, so they can find out."

"Testing?" Mickey asks suspiciously.

"Yeah," Lip replies wearily. "Non-invasive, don't panic. They already tested me. Because I get the memories as well."

Mickey is silent for a moment, processing this. Then he says: "What memories do you get?"

Lip hesitates. "I used to get them a lot around my brother. Conversations we never had. One time he was drunk at... at someone's wedding. He said some shit."

"What shit?" Mickey presses. Lip shrugs.

"Shit about you. It was your wedding."

Mickey laughs bitterly. "My wedding? Who the fuck would marry me?"

"No idea," Lip answers briskly. "All we know is that all these fucking problems are somehow centred on you and him. That's why I get the memories; because I'm connected to him. I'd bet any money that people in your family get them too. Have none of them said anything?"

Mickey just stares at him. "Like they'd tell me."

"What about your sister?" Lip asks. "Some of the memories I've had... Well, they were about her."

"You stay the fuck away from Mandy," Mickey says warningly. He sighs. "She doesn't exactly fucking share. Not since..." He trails off.

"Not since she lost the baby," Lip finishes for him.

Mickey stiffens. "The fuck do you know about that?"

Lip shrugs again, stubbing his cigarette out on the window ledge. "I know she was pregnant four years ago, but she had a miscarriage."

"Shut up."

"And I know it was your dad's baby."

"Shut the fuck up!" Mickey's on his feet now. Lip has no fucking right to say these things. These are private things, things they don't talk about.

"Okay, okay," Lip says quickly. "Sorry."

"I gotta go home," Mickey says.

"Sure," Lip says. "Come by the lab tomorrow, though."

"Why the fuck should I?" Mickey says, suddenly angry. "What's supposed to be so much better about this other fucking world? Things are fucked up wherever we are."

"Maybe," Lip agrees. "Don't you ever hope for something better, though?"

"Fuck off," Mickey says reflexively.

"You gonna come by tomorrow?"

"Yeah, maybe," he replies. "Fuck, I don't know. Maybe."

"Good enough," Lip says. "See you around, Mickey."

Mickey doesn't answer; he feels vaguely as though he's in the middle of someone else's dream, the world blurring around him. He turns and picks up his jacket, tugging it on blindly as he leaves the little bedroom and walks down the hall, passing the red-haired girl in the doorway to another bedroom as he goes. She doesn't speak, just watching him as he goes down the stairs. He's so unaware of his surroundings that he misses the warning signs, the memory catching him completely unawares.

_You can't drink him away, Mickey. It won't work._

"Fuck off!" Mickey hears himself growl; he isn't sure if that's real, or still part of the memory, but he clamps his mouth shut anyway, stamping down the remaining steps. Fiona is watching him from the kitchen, but he ignores her, slamming the front door behind him.

By now, it's completely dark out, and Mickey fumbles for the discarded gloves in his jacket pockets. The snow is coming down thick and heavy, and he steps up the pace. His head is aching. Mickey looks up at the sky. Before today, everything felt fucking pointless; now it feels pointless and inexplicably sad. Like maybe there had been a point, but he'd missed it. Lip had said this whole thing - this whole fucking _world_ \- had happened because of something he didn't do. Mickey fucks up again. Clearly that's a fact that remains constant no matter what world he lives in.

But there's also something else inside him; a feeling he's not used to. A tiny glimmer of hope, shining through his fucking Pandora's Box of a brain. That's what Lip had asked him; if he hoped for something better. The truthful answer is no. Not until today.


	3. Hide And Seek

 

 

The house is quiet when Mickey gets home, which he's glad of. He goes straight to his bedroom, kicking off his boots and letting his jacket slide onto the floor. It's not particularly late, but he feels as though all he wants to do is crash out. Lip fucking Gallagher has given his brain so much to think about that it's all he can do not to fucking explode.

Still, even he is surprised, when he wakes up nine hours and forty-five minutes later, by how quickly he had fallen asleep after everything Lip told him. He lies for a few minutes just staring at his ceiling; there are still a couple of glow-in-the-dark stars left up there from when he was a kid, and he examines them with a frown. The way Lip was talking, these might be the only stars left in a few years’ time. Is the kid seriously saying that the whole fucking world might die because of something Mickey did or didn't do?

No fucking way. Nothing _Mickey_ could ever do could have that much impact. He rolls over onto his side, huddling deeper under the blankets.

But somehow Lip _had_ made sense. An expletive escapes Mickey's lips as he swings his legs out of bed, grunting in annoyance. Weak morning light slips in through the curtains, illuminating the boots and jacket he discarded the night before; he grabs them without bothering to shower or change. If Lip wants him around, he can have him regardless of how he smells.

The El ride to the college seems interminably long. Mickey just sits staring out of the window opposite, completely ignoring anyone who seems likely to make eye contact. There are quite a few people on their way to work, wearing cheap suits and reading newspapers; a couple of old ladies cast disapproving looks at Mickey's unshaven chin and distinct aroma. He figures they probably think he's some bum using the El as a cheap sleeping place. He doesn't really give a shit.

Once he gets there, he has to unbend slightly and ask for directions to the research lab; a helpful Asian girl with glasses points him in the right direction, explaining that she knows it well because her boyfriend works there. He nearly asks her if she knows Lip, but decides against it; he doesn't want anyone knowing he's actually entertaining Gallagher's fucking batshit ideas.

The lab itself is inside a large building made from worn once-white stone, with big glass doors and its own reception desk. A skinny guy with one of the tightest asses Mickey's ever seen stands behind it doing some photocopying; as Mickey approaches, he turns around, revealing thick sideburns and black-rimmed glasses.

"Can I, like, help you, dude?" he says. Mickey notices that he has navy nail polish on his fingers; he wonders what your life must look like when you can do that without having to worry about the consequences.

"Yeah, I'm looking for Lip... _Philip_ Gallagher," he says, trying not to feel self-conscious. This guy - this polished, well-dressed hipster, with his teenage drawl and tight designer clothes - fits in here. Mickey, on the other hand, very clearly does not.

The receptionist seems to be thinking along the same lines, his eyes travelling interestedly up and down Mickey's less-than-clean figure. Mickey folds his arms defensively, and the guy seems to remember his professionalism. "Right, sure," he says. "Is he, like, expecting you?"

Mickey gives a terse nod.

"Okay, man," the guy says, picking up the phone. "I'll just, like, call him, and tell him you're here. What's your name, dude?"

"Mickey," Mickey says. "Mickey Milkovich."

"Cool name, dude," the receptionist says, still not dialling, his eyes lingering on Mickey's face. "Mine's Byron, which, like, shows total lack of originality on mom's part, you know? Like, the whole poet thing is kind of overdone. Are you, like, short for something?"

With a sudden shock, Mickey realises that the guy - Byron, or whatever - is _flirting_ with him. This takes him so much by surprise that he actually answers the question. "Mykhailo."

"Is that, like, Russian? Super cool heritage, bro."

"Ukrainian. Is Lip there?" Mickey says pointedly, having regained his composure.

Byron dials a number, holding the phone to his ear as it rings. "You know, dude," he says laconically, "I reckon a name as, like, awesome as Mykhailo shouldn't be shortened, you know? I mean, I kind of like Mickey, as, like, a social commentary, but Mykhailo, that name's got, like, all this awesome cultural heritage attached-- oh, yeah, hey, dude," he breaks off as the phone is answered. "There's, like, a Mickey Milkovich here to see Philip Gallagher?" He listens for a moment. "Yeah, he's, like, kind of short, but, like, hot, with dark hair. Yeah. Okay, man, I'll send him through."

Mickey raises his eyebrows as Byron replaces the phone in the cradle. Byron, seeing this, smirks. "Dude, I didn't, like, say anything I don't mean."

"Which way do I go?" Mickey asks bluntly, ignoring this. He's never known how to flirt, and he's not exactly sure he wants to in this case.

Byron points down the hall. "All the way to the end, and then, like, turn left. Philip will meet you there." As Mickey strides away, he leans over the desk, calling after him: "See you when you come back out, bro!"

Lip is, indeed, waiting down the hall and to the left. He doesn't seem particularly surprised to see Mickey; Mickey privately thinks that this is because he's too damn cocky to think anyone would dare to do anything other than what he says.

"Hey," Lip says in greeting.

"Hey," Mickey replies. He looks back over his shoulder. "Your fucking receptionist, man, he's..."

"I know," Lip says. "He hits on everyone, but I think he really likes you."

"Fuck off," Mickey says, although he doesn't feel as panicked and angry as he should. After all, here at the college, where you can wear nail polish and have those stupid fucking sideburns, why shouldn't he like who he likes?

Wham! The memory comes out of nowhere, and the clear image of the Kash & Grab swims in front of him. The voice he hears is his own.

 _Liking what I like don't make me a bitch_.

Who did he say that to? Mickey realises, suddenly, that more than the fear, the strangeness of everything Lip has told him, he wants to know about these memories that aren't memories. This life he was apparently supposed to lead, where people say things to him that go deeper than the usual shit he spouts every day. When has he ever had a real conversation with Mandy? With anyone? When has he ever actually been honest with anyone about himself?

Apparently in this other life he feels able to do that with people. And other people feel able to do it with him. Why is his life so inextricably linked with the Gallagher family? Why does he have these non-memories about every one of them?

Lip is looking at him almost sympathetically. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Mickey says brusquely. "Let's just get on with this shit."

Lip turns around without another word, leading Mickey through a door. He finds himself on a small metal balcony, with iron steps leading down into a room that looks like a small aircraft hangar; it's about the size of a soccer pitch, with gleaming grey linoleum covering the floor. In the centre of the room is what looks like a circle of free-standing full-length mirrors; Mickey counts six, with enormous stage lights in between each one, and thick cables connecting them all together. Around the outside of the circle are various desks and computer tables, with several people milling around them in white lab coats.

"The fuck is this place?" he says, turning to Lip. Lip grins.

"Pretty cool, huh," he says, obviously proud. "Come on," he adds, starting down the stairs. Mickey follows, still gazing out into the massive space.

They are met at the bottom of the stairs by a tall, military-looking man with a perfectly smooth head and a large black moustache. Mickey's suspicions are confirmed when Lip salutes him; the man returns the gesture.

"Philip," he says. He casts his eye over Mickey. "Is this the one?"

"This is Mickey," Lip says, his tone more respectful than Mickey has ever heard it.

"Good work," the man says. He looks back at Mickey, extending a large hand. "Major General Scott," he says, rather pompously.

Mickey shakes his hand warily. "Mickey Milkovich."

"A pleasure," the major general says briskly. He gestures towards the circular structure. "Come this way, Mr. Milkovich. I understand you've been briefed by Mr. Gallagher here?"

"Well, yeah," Mickey says hesitantly. He exhales. "None of it makes a flying fuck of sense, though."

To his surprise, Major General Scott actually laughs, as do Lip and several nearby scientists. "I don't disagree with you there," he says.

He stops at a large desk behind which a blonde woman in her thirties sits frowning at a computer screen; she looks up as they approach. "Mr. Milkovich, I'm so glad to meet you," she says warmly.

Mickey just stares at her. He's not sure anyone has ever been glad to meet him before.

"Ella Paulson," she continues, sticking a hand across the desk at him. He shakes it. "I'm heading up this research group."

"Nice to meet you," Mickey says slowly.

"Likewise," she replies, pushing her chair back and standing up. "Now, has Lip explained everything to you? We thought it would be better coming from a friend than from us."

Mickey raises an eyebrow sky-high. "Lip and me aren't what I'd call friends."

"Not in this universe," Ella says without missing a beat. "But he is at least from your neighbourhood. We thought you'd be more... receptive to him."

"I don't even know if I even fucking believe any of this shit." So far, Mickey's tried to avoid swearing in front of this woman, who gives off an aura that distinctly reminds him of Linda from the Kash & Grab, but fuck it. She clearly needs him more than he needs her.

"Understandable," she says, nodding as she moves around the desk. "What has Lip told you?"

Mickey sneaks a sideways glance at Lip, who gives him half a smile in response. He lifts one shoulder and then lowers it again. "Something about the fucking universe splitting, and it all being my fault."

"That's a strong word. It's not your fault," she says.

"Really? Sounds like you all just think I fucked up big enough to explode the fucking world," Mickey fires back.

Ella opens her mouth, and then closes it again. She shoots Lip an annoyed glance. "Look, Mickey - is it alright if I call you Mickey?" She waits for him to nod, and then goes on: "Mickey, the truth is we don't really know what's happened here. All we've identified is that the crack in the universe is in some way focused on both you and Lip's brother, Ian. We're trying to get Ian in, but he's enrolled at West Point, and it's taking some time to get to him. So for now, it's your help we need."

"Yeah, okay, but with what?" Mickey says belligerently. "What is it you think I can fucking do?"

"Go back in time to the centrifugal moment in your life that caused the split to occur, and change it."

There's dead silence between them. Mickey stares at her; he swings wildly around and stares at Lip, too, and then at Major General Scott just for good measure. Finally, he turns back to Ella.

"You're fucking with me."

"No, I'm not," she says seriously.

"Go back in time? You mean... fuck, you mean like fucking _time travel_? What are you, twelve?" he exclaims. Ella looks unmoved by his outburst.

"What I am is a scientist. That's what we all are here. The things we're working on would blow your mind, Mr. Milkovich. I'm perfectly serious," she says calmly.

"You're telling me that you can make me travel back in time," he says flatly. "That's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever fucking heard."

"Nevertheless, we can."

Mickey turns to look at Lip. "She serious?"

"Yeah," Lip says. He looks like he's itching for a smoke, which come to think of it, Mickey could do with too. "I knew you wouldn't believe me if I told you before."

"You got that straight," Mickey scoffs. He sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose with a tattooed forefinger and thumb. "Look... Look, even if I fucking believed you - which I fucking don't! - the fuck do you expect me to do? I'm the guy that apparently fucked this all up in the first place!"

"Wow." This is a new voice, coming from behind them; Mickey whirls around to see a guy who looks about fourteen with an enormous blonde Afro standing watching them. "There were a lot of fucks in that sentence."

"Fuck you," Mickey spits.

"And in that one," the guy comments, unperturbed. He's tiny, with bright blue eyes and a sharply pointed chin; however, looking him over, Mickey sees stubble on his chin that would be more appropriate for someone in his thirties.

"Uh... Mickey, this is Arun Cameron, one of our best and brightest," Ella says quickly. "Arun, this is Mickey."

"Yeah, I know," Arun says. "I've read his file." He narrows his gaze at Mickey. "You're the guy who's going to end the universe."

"Oh, Jesus, just go fuck yourself, you clown-haired queer," Mickey says angrily. Lip puts a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugs it off; suddenly all the confusion and frustration he's been feeling over the last twenty-four hours, all the lethargy and disappointment in his whole life is exploding, and the source of it all is this tiny shock-haired fucker who still stands irritatingly calmly with his hands on his hips. "The fuck do you all want from me, huh? What do you expect me to do? I'm just... I'm fucking no one, alright? You want to fix this shit, get someone who knows what they're fucking doing!"

For a second, no one says anything. Then Arun remarks smugly: "Told you we should have waited for Ian."

Mickey launches himself across the room at the guy; Arun goes down like a stone. There are people yelling, pulling him off the fucking asshole, and Mickey is screaming and swinging punches until he can barely breathe, but underneath it all he's exhilarated. It's been a long time since he's felt like a real Milkovich. Like himself.

"He's fucking crazy!" Arun shrieks. He has a bloody nose, and there'll be a shiner on his cheek tomorrow, but there's not too much wrong with him really. The way he's screaming, you'd think he'd just fucking witnessed the murder of his entire family.

"Pussy," Mickey pants.

"How can you work with this guy?" Arun screeches. Ella holds up her hand.

"Shut it," she says, and he does. So does Mickey, for that matter. She looks from one to the other, sighing. "Look, Arun, you're still breathing, walking and talking. I think you'll live. Go and set up the program."

Arun obeys, although he shoots Mickey a filthy look in the process. Mickey ignores it. He's used to filthy looks; he usually gets them from the pansies who are too afraid to actually hit back.

"As for you..." Ella says, turning back to Mickey. "I won't tolerate fighting in my laboratory, Mr. Milkovich." Her voice is steely. "Got it?"

Mickey wrestles with himself for a moment. He wants to tell her to go fuck herself, but there's something just slightly frightening about this woman. Like she's made of fucking iron. "Got it," he says finally, in his most sullen tone.

"Good," she says crisply. "Right, I think we'll begin. Come this way, Mickey."

She begins walking towards the circle of mirrors; Mickey holds up a hand. "Hold up. Begin what?"

Ella turns to look at him. "The time travel procedure, of course," she says, as though it should have been obvious.

"You want me to do that right now?" he splutters incredulously. "I don't get, I don't fucking know, some kind of build-up, or whatever?"

"Build-up," she repeats skeptically. "Mickey, I don't know if you understand what it means when the stars start going out, but take it from me, we don't have a great deal of time to waste."

"What am I supposed to fucking do?" he yells.

She looks at him, her expression thoughtful. "We've built a machine that will access your cortex. Your brain," she clarifies.

"Yeah, thanks, I'm not fucking stupid," Mickey mutters.

Ella ignores this. "We think there is a... shall we say focus point? A central memory that need to be changed. This machine will identify that memory, and enable you to travel back to them and alter it."

"How will I know _how_ to alter it?"

"We don't know," she admits. "All we know is that you and Ian Gallagher need to be together. How you'll accomplish it will--"

He cuts her off, his voice suddenly hard and flat. "Together? The fuck are you talking about? You calling me some kind of queer?"

She looks sideways at Lip. "You didn't explain this part." It isn't a question.

Lip shrugs. "Didn't want to get punched any more than I could help it."

"I see." She turns back to Mickey. "Mickey, I know that this must be very unnerving for you. Suffice it to say that we wouldn't be suggesting this if we weren't absolutely certain. In the other world - the real world - you and Lip's brother are a couple. You need to make sure that happens."

Mickey can't help it. He laughs. "A couple? What fucking world do you live in? Do you have any fucking idea what my dad would do to me if he thought I was..." He trails off, unable to finish his own sentence.

"Gay?" Ella says for him. "Yes, we do. We've done our research."

"Then you must have got something wrong," Mickey says firmly. "In this... other world, or whatever, I would be fucking dead if I was in a couple with... with Lip's brother. Not that I'm a fucking queer," he adds hastily.

Ella sighs. She looks sort of frustrated in a patronising way, as though he's a petulant five-year-old debating bedtime; Mickey grinds his teeth angrily together. She says at last, "Mickey, when I said we'd done our research, I meant it. I'm in no doubt of your sexuality."

"The fuck is that supposed to mean?" Mickey blusters.

"It means," she says, her voice hardening, "that we know about Harry Drake, Alistair Daniels and Frederick Young."

Mickey feels a hot lump settling in his throat. No one is supposed to know these things. How dare this stupid clinical woman throw his secrets at him like they don't matter? Harry Drake was barely even a thing, just a couple of hand-jobs back when he was about thirteen. Al Daniels blew him once round the back of The Alibi. And he fucked Freddie Young on a mattress underneath the El, just a couple of times. Nothing to write home about. A secret. _His_ fucking secret.

When he speaks, his voice has a slight tremor, but he manages to keep his tone even. "Then I guess you also know about Angie Zago, Amy Harris, Isobel fucking whatever-her-name-was... I've slept with a lot more fucking chicks than... than anything else!"

"We know," she says. "However, we believe that you were motivated by fear, and a desire to appear normal, than by... well, than by the lust usually exhibited by boys of your age."

"I'm not a fucking boy!" Mickey shouts. "You fucking bitch, who the fuck are you to tell me why I've done the things I've done?"

Ella reaches out a conciliatory hand, but he shrugs her away. She says: "Mickey, you misunderstand me. There's no judgement here, none."

"Yeah, well, why should you fucking judge me?" Mickey says fiercely. A bitter smile curves his lips as he repeats the words he said in some distant memory that wasn't a memory. "Liking what I like don't make me a bitch."

"I'm sorry," Ella says sincerely. "We wouldn't have pried into your personal life if it hadn't been absolutely necessary."

Mickey isn't really listening. For some strange reason, he actually feels better; in this place, he can be himself without fear. He's said it, let out his worst secret, and nothing bad has happened. It doesn't mean he likes the way that these people have gone behind his back, but he realises he doesn't have to be afraid of it. He can just be pissed off.

"Yeah, well," he says belligerently. "Let's get this fucking show on the road."

Ella seems a little surprised at how quickly he's let the whole interference into his private life go, but she doesn't comment, walking swiftly towards the mirrors. Mickey follows, dragging off his jacket and gloves as he goes.

"Stand here," Ella instructs once they are within the circle. She points to a spot right in the middle; Mickey, feeling nastily nervous, obeys. He looks around. The mirrors are all huge, big enough to amply show him in all his lack of glory. He doesn't much like having to look at himself at so many angles; it makes his paleness, his unevenly shaven chin, his general untidiness that much more evident.

Ella gestures to a little gaggle of men and women in white coats who are standing off to one side; they hurry forward, one of them carrying an unpleasant-looking contraption of wires and electrodes.

"Stand still, please," Ella says. Mickey watches the researcher, an older woman with red hair twisted into a high knot, approach uneasily.

"What is that thing?" he asks, unable to conceal the trepidation in his tone.

"This goes on your head," one of the other scientists, an attractive Asian man with spiky dark hair, says in a friendly voice. "It looks a bit scary, but it's actually very flexible." He twists one of the small spongy pads in demonstration.

"Okay," Mickey says warily. The woman reaches over to place the headdress over his skull; the Asian man is right. The electrodes are not exactly comfortable, but they don't hurt. They're slightly damp against his hair, and he can smell a distinctly clinical, detergent-like aroma coming from the soft pads.

"We're just going to adjust some of the electrodes to make sure they sit as close to your skin as possible," the woman says. She pulls some medical-grade cotton buds out of her pocket, breaking them out of their sterile packet and dipping them into a clear solution that another researcher is holding out to her.

Mickey closes his eyes, concentrating on keeping his breathing steady. He can feel the cotton buds moving against his head, shifting his none-too-clean hair out of the way so that the electrodes can press against his skull; it doesn't hurt, but it's unnerving all the same. The little sponges sit behind his ears, at the back of his neck, on his temples, and all over the back of his head. He can feel a slight pressure at each point, and senses that after a while they will begin to ache.

"All done," the woman says. Her voice is dry and clinical. "Now, we're going to connect the headpiece to the structure. This may feel a little strange, but it's nothing to worry about."

Mickey wants to scream that it's easy for her to say that; she's not the one being trussed up like some kind of lab rat! He doesn't say anything at all, however, just keeping his eyes tightly shut as he feels a heavy tug and click on the back of the contraption as presumably some wires are plugged into his head.

The researchers buffet him around like a leaf on the wind, but eventually they appear to be satisfied. Mickey opens his eyes. "What do I do now?" he asks Ella, who is standing in front of him.

"You don't have to do anything," she says. "The machine is about to start scanning your brain. When it's finished, the mirrors will light up. Each mirror represents a memory that you have to change, and will act as a doorway into that memory. Once you have altered it, you can return here and take a break before going on to the next one."

Mickey carefully swivels his head around to look at the mirrors. "Six mirrors? I have to do six memories? I thought you said there was only one!"

She nods. "There's one _central_ memory. The memory that changes everything else. But there will be others that need to be altered to ensure that history progresses as it should; six is the number that we've identified. However, it's possible that we've made an error. There's no way of telling." She turns and walks away, stepping out of the circle of lights and wires and mirrors displaying endless Mickeys.

"Hey!" Mickey calls after her. She looks back at him. "You might have made a mistake with the number of memories? Or with all of it?"

She doesn't answer for a minute, just looking at him thoughtfully. Then she says: "Good luck, Mickey."


	4. Till I'm Dead

 

 

That's just about the least reassuring thing she could have said, but before Mickey has any time to complain about it, someone cranks an enormous lever to his right, and the floor lights blaze. The light washes over him; he catches a glimpse of himself in one of the mirrors, looking like a frightened rabbit caught in headlights. Then there's a loud booming noise, and the air around him flashes and crackles.

There's no doubt about it; Mickey is frightened. The faces around the edge of the circle have disappeared, hidden by the brightness of the reflected light bouncing off the mirrors and into his eyes. Then, just as he's about to panic, the lights dim, and switch off. But something is still glowing.

It's the mirrors. Each one is illuminated in a faint golden gleam, as though they have become a source of light in their own right. And when Mickey looks into them, he can no longer see his own reflection. All he sees is a swirl of golden mist.

The mirror straight ahead of him is shining the brightest; somehow, without being told, he can sense that he needs to go there first. Carefully, so as not to rip the electrodes off his head, he walks over to it.

There is something ridiculously terrifying about looking into a mirror and seeing nothing at all staring back at you. The glass shimmers and mists in front of him; he reaches out a shaking hand, and presses it against the surface in front of him, expecting to meet cool resistance.

There is none.

His hand disappears into the mirror, as though it isn't there at all; he pulls it back hurriedly, trying not to freak the fuck out. After all, Ella did tell him that this was what would happen.

He puts his hands into the mirror's golden light again, and then slowly follows them. His arms, his legs, his body, and finally his face - he's unconsciously been leaning back, away from the light - enter the doorway.

Gold mist coils around Mickey's body. He can't see anything else, wherever he looks. He's trying very hard not to panic; Ella didn't tell him what he was supposed to do after this. Hesitantly, he takes another step.

As though waiting for this, the mist dissipates. It seems to be sinking into hard concrete, sucked up into a wan blue sky above him. Another moment, and it's as if it had never been there. Mickey looks around him.

It looks like he's standing underneath the El. He can see piles of dirty sofa cushions stacked up against one of the columns to his left, tufts of grass spiking up here and there in the cracks in the concrete beneath his feet. He realises, with a shock, that he's holding a can of beer in his right hand. He's also wearing gloves and a jacket, despite distinctly remembering taking them off. With his left hand, he reaches up to his head. The electrodes have gone.

Was it all just a strange dream he'd been having? He whirls around to look behind him. The shining doorway through which he'd entered has disappeared. And yet it all feels far too real to have been a dream.

"Yo, Mickey!" He turns sharply at the sound of his own name, and then relaxes. It's Iggy, walking towards him with a cigarette in his mouth. "You staying for one more?"

And that's when Mickey realises what's happening. There was no dream. The machine worked exactly as Ella said that it would. This is a memory. Not a fake, other-worldly memory of something that never happened, but a real memory, of a real day that occurred four years ago.

He doesn't understand. There's nothing special about this memory, nothing to indicate how it could stop the world from exploding, or splitting, or whatever the fuck it's supposed to be doing. This is just an ordinary winter afternoon, during which he and Iggy spent several hours shooting at beer cans once they'd drunk them. He remembers this. Iggy came up to him and asked him to stay for one more. He hadn't been sure if he should or not, but he'd succumbed. They'd gone home late, both of them drunk. That's all that happened. Just a simple, run-of-the-mill memory. What's he supposed to change about this?

Iggy's still looking at him, sucking on his smoke; Mickey says, blindly, "Sure."

He's still thinking. What happened this day? Nothing at all. He'd drunk another beer or three with Iggy, packed up the guns and gone home. And at home...

Fuck.

Mickey drops the beer can.

"What're you doing?" Iggy exclaims, jumping back as alcohol slops on the floor, dangerously close to his shoes.

Mickey's already running. "Gotta go," he calls back over his shoulder. Iggy calls his name, but he ignores it. He remembers what happened when he got home.

He and Iggy had stumbled in to find their father smashing Mandy in the head with a fucking beer bottle. She'd been cowering against the wall, clawing at him with her nails out, screaming blue murder as blood trickled down the side of her face. She'd been off school for a week after it happened.

Mickey doesn't know what it's got to do with the fucking universe. But he knows he has to stop Terry from hurting his sister.

He's dry heaving by the time he reaches his house, retching with the effort of running so hard. His lungs, thick with nicotine and junk food, can't seem to get enough oxygen. Mickey doesn't care. He stumbles up the steps, pushing his way into the house.

"You fucking teasing cunt!" It's his father's voice, deep and drunk and very, very angry. Just the sound of it is enough to paralyse Mickey; he can feel fear rooting him to the spot, reminding him just how very frightening Terry can be.

"Fuck off!" Mandy screeches. She rockets into the living room from her bedroom, Terry lumbering after her; her shirt is torn at the collar. Mickey feels a lump settling in his stomach. He hadn't remembered that before. Maybe he just hadn't wanted to.

Mandy sees him staring. "The fuck are you looking at, asshole?" she screams. Terry doesn't even seem to register Mickey; he has the bottle in his hand, although at this point he's still drinking from it. Mandy backs away, feeling behind her for a weapon.

"Come on, baby," Terry slurs. "Come on, I know you want it."

"Fuck you!" Mandy shrieks. And that's when her father raises the bottle, beer slopping out of it onto the floor, and begins to bring it down.

Mickey reacts without even thinking. He throws himself in front of his sister, crushing her with the weight of his body, hearing her swear loudly beneath him. The bottle comes crashing down onto his head; he feels the stickiness of beer and blood dripping through his hair, glass shattering on his skull.

Then the pain hits him. It's dull at first, spreading across the back of his head, and then a sharp spike of agony flashes through his forehead. He brings his hands up to his face; they're shaking, and blood leaks onto them, staining his knuckle tattoos and dribbling onto the dirty carpet. He thinks he might be making a noise - perhaps a low-pitched scream of pain - but his ears are rushing and he can't hear anything. He looks through his fingers, up at his father.

Terry is panting heavily, but he's dropped the bottle. His eyes gleam malevolently at Mickey, and he raises a fist, swinging it with a wild cry.

It connects with the side of Mickey's face with a heavy thud; Mickey hears his own nose break with a crunch. He tries to open his eyes again, but only the right one will obey him; his left eyelid seems sealed shut. He touches it gingerly with his fingers. It's already swollen to twice its original size.

His father seems to have had enough, at least for now. He turns with a grunt, stamping away into his bedroom; Mickey lets his good eye close, slumping backwards against the wall as Mandy extricates herself from underneath him with some difficulty.

"Fuck, Mickey, I could have handled him!" she says, her voice in equal parts frustrated and concerned.

"No, you fucking couldn't," Mickey says thickly. Blood pours out of his nose, running into his mouth and down the sides of his neck. His hands, he realises, are trembling.

"Shit," Mandy says. "Shit!"

The world is shimmering around Mickey; he almost thinks he can see the golden mist again. But that must be his imagination. Right now, he really doesn't give a shit; everything hurts. Everything is brutal pain. But it doesn't matter. He saved Mandy.

"Mickey," Mandy says. Her voice sounds strange; deeper, somehow. "Mickey. Open your eyes."

"Fuck off," Mickey mutters, keeping them closed.

Mandy chuckles. Mickey's never heard her chuckle before. He's not even sure it's Mandy speaking. "Open your eyes, Mickey."

Nope. Definitely not Mandy. Mickey forces his eyelids open, and as he does, the pain drains away. All that's left is the memory of it. He's still lying on his back, but there's no Mandy kneeling over him. It's Lip.

Slowly, Mickey sits up, looking around. Somehow, inexplicably, he's back in his own world, lying in the middle of the circle of mirrors; a touch to his head assures him that the electrodes are still in place. He frowns at Lip.

"What happened?"

"You passed out," Lip says. "Not surprising, really. That was pretty brutal stuff."

Mickey frowns suspiciously. "How the fuck do you know?"

Lip holds out an arm; Mickey takes it warily, pulling himself up to his feet. Lip points to a large projector screen that Mickey hadn't noticed before. "We can see everything that you see," he says.

"You never fucking said." He knows he should feel violated, angry, but he can't work up the energy. Lip just shrugs.

"Don't take a dump or wank, and I reckon you'll be alright," he says.

Ella walks over to them, her high heels clicking on the shiny floor. "Are you alright, Mickey?" There's genuine concern in her voice.

Mickey shrugs. "It wasn't real, right?"

She gestures for some of the researchers, who scurry forward and start untangling him from the headpiece. "On the contrary," she says. "It was very real. You'll find that new memories are starting to form, memories directly associated with what you altered."

He frowns. "What fucking memories? Did I change things the right way?"

"We won't know until you've finished," she replies. "I'm going to hand you over to some colleagues now, Mickey. They're going to ask you about your new memories."

"I don't have any new--" He stops, because almost the second he says it, he can feel something changing in his brain. A vision of the past, not alien and unrecognisable like the voices he's been hearing, but a fully formed memory that is somehow both real and not real. It both happened - he can see it, he can remember it happening - and didn't happen, because he can also remember the alternate version of history. It's a pretty strange fucking feeling.

It's Mandy, coming home from school the following day, and coming to sit next to Mickey's bed. He hasn't stood up once since his father's attack, but Mandy was able to go to school, because she was unhurt. She's smiling about something, twirling a strand of pink hair around her fingers, but she won't tell him what she's so happy about. He doesn't care enough to push it; his face aches, and his whole body feels heavy, sinking into his creaking mattress.

"What did you see?" This is from Ella, who is still standing in front of him watching his face closely. "Come this way, Mickey. You can tell my colleagues all about it."

The colleagues turn out to be a plump, friendly woman of about forty-five, who introduces herself as Olivia Grayson, and a grey-haired man in glasses who looks like he should be reading his grandchildren stories by the fireside but instead taps speedily at a computer, barely looking up to greet Mickey. Olivia tells him that his name is Professor Reston; he doesn't offer a first name.

"And this is Arun," Olivia says cheerfully.

"You're fucking kidding me," Mickey says. The skinny prick stands awkwardly behind a monitor a few feet away; he blushes when Mickey speaks.

"Look, um... About before. I'm sorry," he says.

"Yeah, well, I'm not," Mickey retorts. "Someone should have kicked your ass a long time ago."

Olivia interrupts hastily. "Okay, okay, come and sit down, Mickey! We'd like to know, if you wouldn't mind, about any significant changes to your personal history now that you've altered the first memory."

Mickey sits down, and tells them about Mandy's visit to his bedside. Well, he's telling Olivia, really, because she's the only one that seems to be paying attention; Professor Reston doesn't stop typing, and Arun just stands there, but Olivia frowns in concentration as he speaks, so he decides not to care about the others.

"Okay," Olivia says when he's finished. "Is that the only change? Just have a think about it. It may take some time for the new memories to filter through."

Mickey slumps back into his chair, allowing himself to relax. It isn't easy; he still feels pretty shaken from what happened. It's been a long time since he's had to deal with Terry in that kind of rage; he's mellowed slightly as his children have grown up.

Slowly, he feels more visions, more memories, creep into his mind as though they've always been there. Mandy had left the house after she came to visit him... where had she gone? He wasn't sure, but she'd come home crying. That gets his blood boiling. He didn't fucking save her just for her to go out and get hurt some other way.

"Mickey?" It's Olivia, still waiting. He looks over at her.

"Mandy was upset," he says lamely. "Something happened after school."

"Okay," Olivia says, nodding as though he's said something important. "Okay, so in our version of history, Mandy was off school for several days, unable to leave the house. But in the original version, something happened to her after school to upset her."

"She wouldn't tell me what happened," Mickey recalls. How does he have both the memory of Mandy injured, and the memory of her crying after she stamped into the house? It doesn't make any sense, but it's there. "But then... Fucking prick!" His voice hardens as he remembers.

"Who?" Olivia asks calmly.

"Ian fucking Gallagher," Mickey says coldly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for your comments and for reading! I really have been writing like a demon for this one, so any comments and concric are welcomed and appreciated. I love hearing thoughts on how it's going! Hope you enjoy :)


	5. Everything To Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to my bae.... loves ya Jiminy Cricket

 

 

"Ian? What are you talking about?" It's Lip; Mickey hadn't realised the prick was still here, hovering behind his chair. He sounds worried at the tone of Mickey's voice; so he fucking should.

"He fucked with Mandy." Mickey's voice is trembling with rage. "Messed with the wrong guy's fucking sister!"

"Fucked with?" Lip repeats disbelievingly. "As in..."

"As in fucking forced, Gallagher, do you need me to fucking spell it out?" Mickey snaps.

Lip, the little fucker, actually laughs; he smothers the sound swiftly at the look on Mickey's face. "You've made a mistake," he says. "Ian's not into chicks."

"There's no fucking mistake," Mickey snarls. "Whatever the fuck you think you know? You're _wrong_ , Gallagher."

"Okay," Olivia says quickly, her voice slightly fluttery. "Why don't you just tell us what you remember?"

"Mandy told me that _Ian_ ," Mickey begins, stretching out the name nastily, "fucking attacked her. Fucker kept avoiding me, so I--"

"Beat me up," Lip says suddenly. Mickey twists in his chair to look at him, frowning suspiciously; Lip's forehead is wrinkled in concentration.

"You're getting the memories as well? That's very interesting, Lip, and a really good sign that everything's working the way it should," Olivia says cheerfully. She turns to look at the professor behind her. "Have you made a note of that, Daniel?"

The elderly man stops typing for the first time since Mickey first saw him, giving a little irritated sigh as he removes his glasses. "Yes, dear," he says in a tone that somehow manages to sound both patronising and sarcastic. "I haven't missed a single second of Mr. Milkovich's positively _riveting_ exposition."

Olivia blushes and turns back around without saying anything else; the professor slides his glasses back up his nose and resumes tapping away at the monitor.

"So," she says brightly to Mickey. "Your sister informed you that Ian had sexually assaulted her. You responded to these allegations by physically attacking Lip here. Anything else?"

Mickey stares at her. "Did you just fucking blank out the reality of what you just fucking said?"

She blushes again, her eyes closing briefly. "Sorry," she says. "I understand that this must all be very traumatic for you, Mickey. How are you doing? It's just," she says hurriedly, before he has a chance to reply, "we're really a little anxious to get this sorted out today."

Lip comes around Mickey's chair and slips into one next to him; as he does so, he mutters, "Batty."

This is so close to Mickey's own assessment of Olivia that he actually feels the corners of his mouth twitch, before he remembers what Lip's brother did to his sister.

He focuses on Olivia again, who is waiting for him to answer her with a slightly nervy expression on her face. "Don't think so," he says. "No, fuck, wait a minute."

He thinks about it. Mandy, practically fucking skipping as she came into the house a few days later... he'd asked her what she had to be so fucking happy about, and she'd told him she had a boyfriend.

Ian fucking Gallagher. "She told me to lay off," he tells Olivia. "No fucking clue why."

"Because the whole thing was a pile of horse shit?" Lip suggests. Mickey practically growls at him.

"Have you remembered anything else, Lip?" Olivia asks.

Lip shrugs. "Mandy came on to Ian. He turned her down. She was pissed."

"You calling my sister a liar?" Mickey says fiercely.

Lip holds up his hands. "I'm just telling you what Ian told me, okay?"

"So what happened?" Olivia asks.

"He went over to your house with a baseball bat," Lip tells Mickey, ignoring Olivia completely. "He was gonna try and fight you off, but Mandy came out. He ran off to talk to her. I guess he won her over, or maybe... yeah, I think he actually fucking told her the truth!"

"The truth?" Mickey asks guardedly.

Lip sighs. "That he's gayer than a fucking Judy Garland singalong, genius."

"Fuck you," Mickey says. His head falls quite naturally into his hand; he suddenly feels exhausted. He's redone the fucking memory; everyone seems to be pleased. Why does he have to do it five more fucking times?

"Okay," Olivia says for what feels like the five hundredth fucking time. "Are those all the changes? Really think about it."

Mickey forces his exhausted brain to make the effort, although he's pretty close to jacking the whole thing in. There's something else changing; he can feel it creeping across his mind like an inescapable mist.

Inexplicably, the memory of the time he'd punched Kash in the face after the fucking pussy didn't have the stones to actually use the gun he'd pulled swims in his mind. He vaguely remembers the ginger kid working there shouting angrily after him; he'd made some smartass reply. Something about the kid knowing where he lived if he had a problem. But then, why would the kid know where he lived?

But now a new memory is forming; one that never happened. It's a fight, between him and the ginger kid, in his bedroom at home; the ginger fucker burst in on him wielding a tire iron and babbling on about the gun he took from Kash.

He'd wrestled the kid to the ground and smashed him in the head with the tire iron. What the fuck was he expected to do?

Slowly, he narrates this new memory to the listeners around him. Olivia's expression remains neutral, and Professor Reston impassively continues typing, but Arun looks faintly disgusted and Lip's face twists angrily as Mickey speaks.

"He came home with his head practically split in fucking half," he spits when Mickey's finished, his voice trembling with emotion.

"What do you remember?" Olivia asks.

"He was in hospital for weeks," Lip says. "Don't even fucking ask me about the bills."

"The fuck was I supposed to do?" Mickey exclaims, annoyed. "Little bitch came at me with a tire iron."

"Yeah, you hit his boyfriend!" Lip says, his voice rising.

"His boyfriend?" Mickey repeats incredulously. "Fucking... fucking towelhead? Seriously?"

"Yeah, well, I wasn't particularly happy about it, but that's Ian for you," Lip says bitterly. "I guess he knew where you lived because he was friends with Mandy."

Friends with Mandy. Of course. Mickey feels the realisation spread across his mind; the ginger idiot had spent time at his house, playing video games and eating pizza bagels. Not just friends. He'd been Mandy's boyfriend. Ian Gallagher. He hadn't been just any ginger fucker; he'd had a name, an identity.

"I thought they were fucking together," he says. "So what, Mandy was like... like his fucking beard?"

"I guess," Lip says, shrugging.

"What happened after the incident with the tire iron?" Olivia interrupts.

Mickey shrugs defensively. "Never saw the prick again. Stopped coming around, Mandy never talked about him. Figured it was over."

"He was fucking afraid!" Lip shouts. Mickey ignores this.

"Right, okay," Olivia says. "I think we've got everything we can, unless there's anything else you remember?"

"Don't think so," Mickey mutters. He's thinking about Ian Gallagher. Ella said that they were supposed to be a couple, but he really has no fucking idea how that's supposed to happen; the part that's especially pissing him off is that the idea is making his chest flutter uncomfortably.

Ian fucking Gallagher. He's just some scrawny freckled kid that Mickey's never even thought twice about. But now... Well, the kid's undeniably _attractive_. Any idiot with two eyes in their head can see that.

Fuck. He shakes the thought out of his head.

"Mickey? Did you remember something?" It's Ella's voice this time; she's standing nearby with her hands on her hips.

"No," he replies, more forcefully than he'd intended. He sighs. "Just fucking tired."

She tips her head sympathetically to one side. "Arun, go and get Mickey a glass of water," she says without turning. "Someone should have offered it to him an hour ago."

Arun makes an irritated grunt, but he goes anyway; Mickey manages the ghost of a satisfied smile.

"I think we've identified the next memory," Olivia says to Ella. Swiftly, she relates the incident where Mickey beat Ian with the tire iron; Ella listens without comment.

"I see," she says coolly when Olivia's done. She doesn't even look at Mickey; her expression hasn't changed, but there's an unnatural stillness about her body that manages to intimate her revulsion as much as if she'd screamed it in his face. "So you believe that Mr. Milkovich should _not_ initiate this attack, this time around?"

Olivia is nodding, but Mickey interrupts, tired of the bullshit. "Look, lady," he says. "In my fucking world, when someone comes at you with a weapon, you better get the fucking upper hand before they kill you, alright?"

Ella doesn't reply, but her posture becomes slightly less stiff. "This way, please," she says, walking smartly back towards the circle of mirrors. Mickey groans, but he follows.

Arun brings him his glass of water as the researchers are attaching the electrodes back to his head; he hands it to Mickey without a word, but then just kind of fucking stands there, hovering, chewing his bottom lip. Mickey glares at him until he backs away, blushing.

"Okay, Mickey," Ella says once the stupid thing is firmly fixed onto his skull. "I think this time the change you need to make is fairly apparent. You stopped one fight; now stop another one."

He doesn't say anything, psyching himself up for the unpleasant experience of going back in time. At least this time, he shouldn't get hurt; he wonders, though, how he's supposed to stop the kid hitting him with the fucking tire iron without fighting. He can't remember enough about the fight to try and figure it out now; at the time, it was just another scrap he'd got himself in and out of, nothing about it to mark it out as special. Another haze of memory suddenly picked out as significant because some douchebags in white coats say so.

He sees the lever moving slowly, the lights beginning to blaze, but for a split second before the machine sends him whirling back in time, some strange instinct sends Mickey's eyes flicking up and to the right. There, standing on the iron steps leading down into the bunker, are two people; a slender Asian woman in a lab coat, and with her, a tall red-head. Ian Gallagher.

An unexpectedly strong wave of desire sweeps through Mickey. It's one thing being told you're supposed to be with someone - even someone you vaguely remember as being fairly attractive - but being faced with him is another thing entirely. Gallagher is broad and muscular in the chest, though his frame is long and a little lanky. He's clearly built, the muscles in his arms flexing unconsciously as he walks down the stairs. His flame-coloured hair is buzz-cut at the sides, a little longer on top; he has bright green eyes, and the sort of mouth that looks like it would make a great smile.

Images swim into Mickey's vision; not memories this time, but fantasies. Seeing that body naked in front of him and knowing it belongs to him. His tattooed hands cupped around those strong arms, drawing those slightly quirked lips down to his cock. His fingers, running through that memorable hair, sliding across the planes of that freckled chest.

As these thoughts rush through Mickey's mind, Gallagher looks up, and as if divinely called, meets Mickey's eye. He doesn't smile; why would he? If he even recognises Mickey in all this tangle of wires, he'll be remembering him as someone who once beat him up. And suddenly, where all the judgement of Lip and Ella and Arun and Olivia was meaningless, Mickey feels ashamed that he did it. Wishes that Gallagher didn't have that memory of him, didn't know him like that. Even if Mickey manages to change it now, Gallagher will still remember the old version. He'll still know that there was once a version of Mickey that would have done that to him.

Gallagher. Even saying the name to himself feels right. It's why it felt wrong to address Lip that way; that nickname belongs to Ian. Mickey doesn't exactly know much about the ending of the world, or fate, or any of this other shit, but he's not a fucking idiot. It's pretty fucking obvious that he and Ian Gallagher are kind of meant to be, at least according to the universe, and that scares the shit out of him.

It's everything he's not allowed to want, right there in one tall gorgeous ginger package. Everything Terry would kick his ass for even thinking about. That beating he just took for Mandy? That would be nothing compared to what his father would dish out if he had the slightest inkling that Mickey is as queer as the proverbial folk.

And just as he's thinking all that, the lights explode around him, and Gallagher's face, staring grimly at him from the stairs, vanishes as the mirrors gleam around him and the air fizzes with electricity. This time, it's the mirror to the left of the one he entered before that seems a little brighter than the others; Mickey walks towards it in a daze, still caught up in his own head.

It still feels weird to push through what ought to be glass and find a completely different world on the other side, but at least this time he knows what to expect. The golden mist whirls and eddies around him as he leaves the bunker behind, stepping forward until his own bedroom floor begins to solidify underneath his feet.

If he'd stopped to think about it - which he didn't - he figures he ought to have known he'd be back in his house, his room. This, after all, was where the altercation took place. He kind of wishes it could have happened another way, though; like maybe he could have stopped himself from hitting Kash, or something, so the Gallagher kid wouldn't feel the need to come by with a piece of metal he was barely big enough to hold above his head. So Mickey wouldn't actually have to see Gallagher, interact with him. That would make life infinitely easier.

He knows from experience, however, that life rarely follows a pattern of his design, so he puts it out of his head, looking around instead. He realises that instead of standing, he's actually lying on his bed; he sits up abruptly. Maybe he can circumvent this fight by running away, getting out of the house.

Fucking Gallagher. Fucking scientists, expecting him to somehow change the world. How the hell is he supposed to know what he's doing? If he gets the fuck out of the Milkovich residence, will something else bad happen? Will he step on a butterfly and wind up accidentally killing the President? Mickey groans, well aware that his indecision is probably being live-streamed to an audience analysing every move he makes. Including Ian fucking Gallagher. He doesn't even know the kid, he's never even fucking spoken to him, and yet he wants Ian not to think any worse of him than he already does.

Mickey's head is pounding with the weight of the responsibility that's been thrown onto his shoulders; he lets himself slump back against the wall, briefly closing his eyes. What happens if he just lets Ian hit him with the tire iron until he's dead? Then, presumably, he'll just fade out of existence in the present day, and they'll have to find some other sap to change history.

He rolls over so he's lying on his stomach on the bed. He's exhausted, both physically and mentally drained from everything he's already had to deal with today. He fucking took on Terry today! Maybe the scars on his body are years old, but in his head it only just happened. He lets his breathing slow, his mind flickering in and out of memories that may or may not be real. Who the fuck even cares any more? Who the fuck gives a shit?

Mickey only realises he's fallen asleep when he feels something sharp nudging into his shoulder blade; his eyes pop open, his mouth already mumbling before he can kick his brain into action.

"The fuck?" he groans sleepily, but a voice overrides him.

"I want the gun back, Mickey."

Mickey turns to look over his shoulder. "Gallagher?" Slowly, it's all trickling back; the scientists, fucking Lip, Ella, all that shit. He's left it too late to run away, falling asleep like a fucking idiot. This is it, right here; this is the memory he's supposed to change, and Ian fucking Gallagher is standing right in front of him.

"The gun," Gallagher says insistently, waving the tire iron. He sounds nervous, but determined. Despite himself, Mickey feels a flush run down his chest straight to his groin. He's seen what this skinny uncertain kid turns into.

"Alright," he says, stalling for time as he slides off the bed. He's trying to remember where he actually put the damn thing; if he just gives it to Gallagher, will the kid go away? He's not sure whether or not he wants that. His body is aching to be nearer to Ian, but internally he's freaking the fuck out.

He looks in his bedside drawer, Gallagher looming over him. It's not there, and suddenly a wash of something uncomfortably close to fear spreads through him. The gun isn't in the drawer, Gallagher is waiting at his back, a bunch of people who think he's a violent delinquent are watching every move he makes and apparently the fate of the world is on his shoulders. It's all too much, crowding out every coherent thought until his head is buzzing.

Mickey reacts the only way he knows how: viscerally. He turns suddenly, fist swinging, the full weight of his body propelling Gallagher sideways onto the bed. At the back of his mind he knows that he's not doing it right, that he was supposed to be _preventing_ this fight, but in the moment he doesn't give a shit. Frankly, it feels good to let out some of the frustration pent up inside him.

He smashes Gallagher's wrist into the wall until the kid releases the tire iron; he has to admit that he's kind of impressed with Gallagher's fortitude, because the kid doesn't let out more than a grunt, fighting back with all he's got despite being pressed down into the bed with his face in the pillow. He actually manages to gather enough momentum to knock Mickey backwards, catapulting them both across the room onto the sofa against the opposite wall. Mickey's up again in a minute, pushing and shoving and hitting until he's got Gallagher on his back, the tire iron held dangerously above the kid's head.

This feels fucking good. It's so _easy_ to be like this; to jump into action, to fight, to be the toughest asshole in the room. This is what he's good at. This is what he does best.

It's stopping that's hard.

But Mickey does stop, just pauses, just for a second, because he's remembering. Remembering the fact that he's already done this once; he's brought the tire iron smashing down into Gallagher's face, beaten him until he's bloody, taught him the inevitable lesson of what happens when you fuck with a Milkovich.

He's not supposed to be doing this. But more importantly, he doesn't _want_ to do this. He doesn't want Gallagher to hate him. He doesn't want this to be what Gallagher - the real Gallagher, the adult Gallagher - sees on the projector screen.

Shit, he doesn't even know the kid. Not yet. But somehow he has this feeling of what it might be like to know him, and he wants to chase it. More than he wants to hit and fight and lash out until everything just backs the fuck off, he wants to chase that feeling.

So he stops.

He's kneeling on Gallagher's chest, poised above him with the iron bar in one hand and the other pushing down on Gallagher's shoulder. He's panting, partly from the exertion of their fight, and partly from the memories and thoughts whirling around his head, clamouring to make themselves known. Gallagher's breathing pretty heavily too, looking up at Mickey with his face red and screwed up. Waiting to see what Mickey will do next.

Mickey doesn't do anything. He just looks at Gallagher. And slowly, he starts to notice things.

He notices that Gallagher, despite being in a position that would have most fifteen-year-olds crapping their pants, still has a steely, determined expression in his green eyes. He notices that Gallagher has freckles all over his flushed face, disappearing into his hairline. He notices that Gallagher's chest fits quite nicely between his knees.

He realises that he likes what he sees. And apparently, so does his cock, because it's suddenly hard in his pants. It's so the wrong moment - he's in his father's house, he's supposed to be saving the world, there's a shitload of fucking researchers watching him on a projector the size of his bedroom wall at this very second, not to mention the fact that his groin is directly in Gallagher's line of sight, but yeah, this is happening. He's getting a fucking boner.

Gallagher is staring at up at him, and then his eyes flick down to the growing bulge in Mickey's pants. He looks back up swiftly, but Mickey knows he's seen it. He knows.

Another beat of his heart, another second that seems to last forever. His fingers are twitching on the iron bar; every instinct is screaming to bring it crashing down, prevent the kid from being able to tell anyone about Mickey's traitorously hard cock, but he doesn't.

He drops the tire iron. In the back of his head, he knows that there are a lot of people watching him - including Ian himself - but right now he doesn't give a shit. He's horny and he hasn't been laid in a long time, and suddenly that's the only thing that matters.

 Mickey falls back, letting Gallagher up; tugs at his own tank top, pulling it over his head. Gallagher struggles to free himself from underneath him, and yes, fucking _yes_ , Mickey judged this right, because Ian's shrugging his coat off as he stands next to the bed, looking just about as desperate as Mickey feels.

Mickey launches himself hungrily at the kid, hands scrabbling clumsily at Gallagher's shirt, tugging it impatiently off to reveal a pale, slender chest with half-formed muscles that Mickey knows will turn into something even more impressive in a few years' time. Gallagher's face splits into a wide, wicked grin, and Mickey's heart stops. He fumbles at his own pants, sliding backwards on the bed to let Gallagher back in between his knees.

He's sweating, nervous and excited and excited _because_ he's nervous. This is the person he's been told he's supposed to be with, and this is the first time he gets to be with him. What he's doing now is going to change history. He knows all that. But right now he's just caught up in the fact that he's right here, in the moment, in his own house, his dad probably asleep a few rooms away, with Ian fucking Gallagher grinning at him like nothing else matters. And maybe nothing else does matter. This is it. This is his moment, and no one can take it away from him.

Gallagher strips down to his boxers, revealing lightly freckled, muscular thighs with a downy layer of red hair covering them. Mickey's eyes are drawn straight to his groin, and Gallagher fucking knows it, because he smiles salaciously as he pushes his fingers into the waistband of his boxers, pushing them down achingly slowly. Mickey lies back against the pillows, watching, one hand clasped around his own cock.

Slowly, Gallagher's taut abdomen comes into view, and then a mass of tight red curls, and then, finally, beautifully, his cock, swollen, hard and dripping. Mickey swallows.

"You gonna get on me, then?" he says gruffly. It's the first time either of them have spoken; Ian looks up sharply at the sound of his voice. Mickey lets his eyes drift away, trying to calm the anxiety pulsing through his chest.

Because why the fuck wouldn't he be anxious? Gallagher's on another planet, totally out of Mickey's orbit. Seeing him like this is like being allowed a glimpse into another world, one he never even considered possible for someone like him. It's just... just... but whatever it is, Mickey can't remember, because Gallagher's hand wraps around his cock, and the world just kind of fucking implodes.

Mickey's hands are on Gallagher's shoulders, their cocks sliding against each other, and each touch makes Mickey's skin tingle, little bursts of raw electricity running through him as Gallagher jerks him, harder and faster until Mickey's writhing and gasping, desperate and hungry. He forgets about the people watching him. He forgets about Terry in the next room. He forgets his own fucking name. All there is in his world is the feel and the touch of Gallagher, filling his vision, filling in all the little holes in his memory, filling up Mickey's entire universe.

Then Gallagher stops; Mickey makes a frustrated, needy sound, but it turns into a groan as Ian's hands slide up his chest, one settling around the back of his neck while the other runs down one side. There's a split second's pause as Gallagher just looks at Mickey, and then Mickey knows that Ian's about to kiss him.

He wants it. He wants to feel Gallagher's mouth moving against his, press their lips together, be as entwined as it's possible to be without actually fucking. But he's never kissed anyone before, and suddenly he's afraid. Fucking is easy. But kissing suggests something more intimate, something Mickey's never come close to before, and he can't do it.

Fluidly, as if he hasn't realised what Gallagher is about to do, Mickey grasps Ian firmly around the waist and flips him back against the pillows; Gallagher laughs breathlessly, looking up at Mickey with an expression that makes Mickey's stomach turn over.

Mickey moves downwards until his face is level with Gallagher's dick. His eyes flick upwards, and for a moment they meet Ian's; then, without warning, he bends and wraps his lips around the head of the other boy's twitching cock.

Gallagher bucks underneath him. "Fuck, Mickey," he moans, his voice a high, keening whine. Mickey smiles around the appendage in his mouth. His life may be shitty in about ten million ways, but if he can make that sound come out of Gallagher's mouth, it can't all be bad.

He sucks sloppily, his tongue running in lines from the base of Ian's cock to the head, while Gallagher wriggles and sighs and gasps out Mickey's name over and over again. Mickey is shivering from the pleasure of it, the power of being the person to reduce Ian to this hot mess. He, Mickey Milkovich, thug, bully, criminal, delinquent... he's done this. He's taken a person a thousand times better than himself, and somehow managed to make him happy. Something hot and pleasurable squirms in his stomach, making him feel light-headed and trembly. It's like nothing he's ever experienced before, and suddenly it's not hard to believe that it has the power to change the universe. It's certainly changing his.

When he can't take it any more, he draws away, eliciting a deep groan from Gallagher. "Fucking get on me," Mickey growls.

Ian doesn't wait to be asked twice; he's on his knees in a second, grabbing at Mickey's hips as he gets onto his hands and knees. Mickey can feel Gallagher's hands stroking down his spine; his skin tingles with every touch. Then, without warning, Gallagher licks a long stripe from his tailbone down to his ass, and lights explode behind Mickey's eyes.

He hears himself gasp, and Gallagher moves away, replacing his tongue with a finger, circling Mickey's hole. "You got stuff?" he breathes.

"Drawer," Mickey manages to get out breathlessly. "Bedside table."

Ian's finger withdraws; Mickey hears the squirt of a bottle, smells the chemical scent of cheap condoms, and then it's back again. Mickey moans, louder than he means to, as Gallagher's slick finger slides inside him, curling upwards until it finds his prostate. He pushes his ass backwards, fucking himself on Ian's finger, little noises he's never heard before coming out of his mouth. Ian adds a second finger, spreading Mickey out, and then a third. Mickey's literally seeing stars, and he almost comes; by some herculean effort he manages to stop himself.

"I'm good to go," he barks. "Just, fucking...!" He trails off, lost in the pleasure rushing through him; Ian seems to understand, removing his fingers.

For a second Mickey feels empty, and then the pressure of a cock touches his ass, and then Gallagher's there, pushing inside him, stretching him out, filling him up, and it's there, and there's nothing else, nothing else but Ian, expanding to fill every space of Mickey that there is, and everything else just kind of fucking falls away.

Ian moves, and Mickey rocks with him; he's not stupid enough to think that he can actually let out the desperate moans building up inside him, but they're there, filling his head as Ian thrusts inside him. He limits himself to grunts, the pleasure building until everything is just a cacophony of noise and feeling.

"Fuck," Gallagher says in a low groan. "Fuck, Mickey, Mickey, fuck... Oh shit, I'm going to--"

He half-falls forwards, slumping across Mickey's back as he comes; his hand reaches around and grasps Mickey's cock, and just that simple touch is enough. The pressure and the touch and the light build up in a great rushing wave, and he's coming, he's coming, the world is expanding and soaring around him, because he's coming, he's coming.

Mickey doesn't know how long he and Ian have been lying tangled together in a mess of blankets, panting and trembling with the exertion, but eventually he gathers himself together enough to pull the covers over them, fumbling in his bedside drawer for a lighter and cigarettes, holding the pack wordlessly out to Ian before taking one himself.

Gallagher accepts one without comment, and for a while they just lie there in companionable silence. Mickey can see the golden mist beginning to descend; he knows it'll be over soon, but right now he can just enjoy being here with Ian. They don't have to speak. One look at Gallagher's lazy smile tells Mickey exactly what the redhead is thinking.

The mist shimmers around them, growing thicker, blotting out the room around them, so Mickey just turns to look at Gallagher, because if he's going, he wants that smile to be the last thing he sees. And it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woop woop, Gallavich is here! Thank you everyone for the amazing comments! Keep 'em coming, I'm a cripplingly anxious attention whore....


	6. Out Of Mind

 

 

"Mickey?" It's Ella's voice, crisp and efficient, as though she didn't just watch him taking it up the ass. Mickey keeps his eyes closed, feeling the renewed pressure of the headpiece on his scalp, the cool floor beneath his slumped body. He doesn't want to wake up from this dream, this memory.

"Mickey," Ella says again, her voice hardening. He recognises the no-bullshit tone, and forces his eyelids open; she stands over him with her hands on her hips, and he sits up swiftly. A couple of the researchers start detaching him from the machine.

When the wires are safely tucked away, Ella gestures towards the area where Olivia and her team already sit waiting. Lip is conspicuously absent from the group this time, to Mickey's immense relief; he walks over and sits in the empty chair waiting for him, accepting a plastic cup of lukewarm water from Arun without comment.

There's silence for a moment. Then Olivia says hesitantly: "Um... Well, Mickey, could you just talk us through - well - has anything changed?"

It's fucking ironic, Mickey thinks grimly, that watching him getting beaten half to death by his father didn't faze her in the slightest, but watching him getting fucked has reduced her to these awkward half-formed sentences. She can't even meet his eyes.

"I'd say there's been a bit of an alteration, yeah," he replies loudly, pushing down his own mortification in favour of increasing hers. "Or did you not fucking notice?"

There's a noise behind him, a snort of amusement, and he turns, his heart in his mouth, because he already knows what he's going to see. And sure enough, there's Ian Gallagher, in the flesh; he has his large arms folded in front of his body, and there's a slight twitch in the corner of his mouth that could almost be a smile. He's wearing camo pants and a green shirt with army issue boots, and Mickey remembers that they had to get him down from West Point.

For a second, Mickey catches his eye; Gallagher's face grows more serious, and they just look at each other. And despite the fact that his dick is limper than a wet lettuce leaf - coming that hard will do that to a guy - Mickey still feels a little shiver of lust run through him.

Hurriedly, he breaks away from the intoxicating gaze, back to Olivia. She gives an incredibly fake smile. "Of-of course," she stutters. She looks up over Mickey's shoulder at Gallagher. "Ian, Lip," she says, her tone betraying her relief. "Why don't you come and sit down? We'll need to get your impressions as well."

"Fuck's sake," Mickey mutters under his breath. He forces himself to stare straight ahead, steadfastly looking anywhere other than the chairs on his left as Lip and Ian seat themselves; he's both relieved and annoyed when Lip, rather than Ian, sits immediately next to him.

"So, Mickey," Olivia says brightly. Mickey looks up; to his horror, there are eyes on him from every direction. Even the fucking professor is looking at him. Ella has obviously decided to sit in on this interrogation; Arun is watching him the way you might watch a fucking zoo animal. Lip is glowering at him, the hostility rolling off him in waves; at least that Mickey can understand. He knows Ian is looking at him too, but he doesn't dare even glance at him.

"What?" he asks belligerently.

Olivia's smile falters. "Well, what's changed?" she asks nervously.

Mickey shrugs. He doesn't want to think about it. He can feel the memories begin to creep in, but he almost doesn't want to know what they are; how can whatever it is he just started with Gallagher end well? Where can any of it go, in this shitty neighbourhood? He finds himself thinking about his sister, with her cold, deadened eyes. Is she getting new memories, along with him? Is she scared right now?

But he already knows the answer to that. He can remember the changes himself. Because Ian helped her.

He turns to Gallagher, and speaks to him for the first time.

"You gave her the money to get rid of it." It isn't a question. It's a memory. He can remember.

Gallagher's face turns, his expression perplexed, and Mickey has to stop himself gasping at the lightning strike of desire. "What?" Gallagher asks. "Get rid of what?"

"Mandy," Mickey clarifies. He doesn't have to say anything else.

"I did," Gallagher says, almost wonderingly, as if he's just remembering it himself. Which, Mickey figures, he probably is. "I raised the money."

"Keep us in the loop, please," Ella cuts in. "Are you referring to the pregnancy?"

Mickey stares at the floor. He doesn't want to think about this. Mandy, her stomach swelling and stretching, sick to her stomach, her white face shrivelling and shrinking as the blood poured out of her. It's not real any more. He made it not happen, and he should be proud of that. But he can still remember it.

Ian is speaking. "Yeah, Mandy was pregnant," he said. "I helped her raise the money for an abortion." He doesn't look at Mickey as he speaks.

"Were you the father?" Olivia asks, frowning. "I don't remember seeing that on file."

Gallagher snorts. "Did you not just fucking see that?" he asks, gesturing towards the enormous screen upon which Mickey's very own live-action porno was apparently displayed. "No, I was not the fucking father."

"It was my dad." Mickey's voice is raspy, his eyes still firmly fixed on the floor. He clears his throat. "She looks a lot like our mom, and when he's drunk..." He trails off, and then picks up again. "I should have stopped it." He looks up at Ella. "Is that the next memory I change? Can I fucking stop him?"

"Why didn't you?" Lip says belligerently. "Mandy's your fucking sister!" So the truth comes out. He'd sounded so fucking sympathetic when he'd talked to Mickey the day before in the Gallagher house.

Mickey's head drops again. "I didn't know," he says honestly. "She never told anyone."

"She told me," Gallagher says. "When she got pregnant. Her dad thought I'd done it. He couldn't even fucking remember what he'd done." His voice shakes with anger. "That's why I helped her raise the money."

Mickey doesn't say anything. He hadn't known; he hadn't known anything about it until Mandy was too big to fucking hide it. Even then she wouldn't tell him - any of them - who the father was; Mickey had just assumed it was an ordinary, stupid teenage pregnancy. He hadn't given it much thought.

"So in the new version, you helped Mandy to get an abortion," Olivia says in a business-like tone. "That's certainly a change."

"Why, what happened in this version?" Ian asks. He doesn't know. Of course he doesn't know; in this version of history, he and Mandy were never even friends. Lip knows, but why would he tell Ian? He only knows because he helped these fucking scientists pry into Mickey's whole life.

"She had the baby," Mickey says woodenly.

"She had a miscarriage," Ella says gently.

That's it. He's fucking had enough. He's on his feet before he even knows he's done it; the chair is in his hands, and he's hurling it across the room. It hits the projector screen, clattering down to the floor with a loud crash. "Shut the fuck up!" Mickey yells. No one responds; they all look shocked at his outburst. Well, tough shit. They shouldn't be; they've seen enough of his life.

"She lost the baby?" Ian asks quietly after a minute or so.

"Shut up," Mickey says again, but with less heat this time. Somehow, he doesn't mind it so much when Ian asks.

"But that's changed now," Olivia says in what she probably thinks is a soothing voice. She stands up, laying a hand on Mickey's arm. "Mickey, Ian helped her get an abortion. You made that happen by changing these memories. She never had to go through that."

Mickey pulls away sharply. "I still fucking remember it!" he shouts. "You can't just fucking say that. You can't act like it doesn't fucking matter! She still remembers it. It still fucking happened."

"What happened?" Ian says forcefully. "What happened?"

"I don't... fuck, I don't fucking know!" Mickey feels cornered, beleaguered by these fuckers who just don't fucking get it. They weren't there. They think that because Ian - perfect fucking Ian Gallagher - helped Mandy in the new version of history, the old version stops counting. It doesn't.

"Okay, calm the fuck down," Lip says. He steps up to Mickey, coming way too close.

"Back the fuck off, Gallagher," Mickey spits, planting his hands on Lip's chest. Lip steps away. "You fucking bitches, you don't fucking know."

"What don't we know?" It's Ian, and his voice is gentle. Understanding.

Mickey's panting, his heart thumping, but he forces himself to calm down. Everyone is standing up, crowding in close, and it's making his head ache. "I just thought she was knocked up by some moron from school," he says. He's not exactly being quiet, but he's not shouting either. "But she was being really fucking weird, alright? Especially around our dad. And then..." His vision blurs as he remembers. "I don't fucking know what happened. One minute, she's cooking fucking pasta, and then she's on the fucking floor. There was so much fucking blood."

"Did you call an ambulance?" Olivia asks.

Mickey stares at her. "I'm not a fucking psycho," he snarls. "Course I did! But by the time they got there it didn't even fucking matter. The thing... It looked like a fucking... a fucking..." He stops. He can't finish.

"She had the baby," Ian says. His voice is tight, angry, despairing. Everything Mickey had felt at the time.

"It was dead," Mickey says harshly. "It was more blood than anything else. Then dad came in... Mandy went fucking mental. Said it was his fault. That he'd fucking done this to her. That's when I knew."

_You want mom back? You drink to fucking forget her, you prick, and then you see me and you want me to be her? You did this! You fucking did this to me! To_ him _. Look at him. Just fucking look at him!_

Her voice reverberates around Mickey's head, shrill and desperate and so, so fucking unhappy. Just a couple minutes after that the ambulance had arrived, and everything happened so quickly that anything else was lost in the melee. But Mickey does remember one other thing. He looks up at Gallagher.

"He couldn't look," he says. "My fucking dad. He couldn't fucking look at the... at the baby. She asked him to look. That's all she fucking asked. He couldn't look." He turns fiercely to Olivia. "It fucking happened, alright? You don't get to just... just fucking wipe it off the slate. It happened. I remember it. My hands were covered in her blood. I was there."

"Okay," Olivia says, holding up her hands. "I know. It happened."

"Don't you fucking forget it," Mickey says, and then he turns and walks away. Ian can tell them the rest of the memories that are changing. He's fucking done.

He doesn't know where he's going until he's halfway up the iron steps that lead back to the entrance of the building; no one tries to stop him from leaving. He figures all the rage he never got to take out on anyone who actually deserved it is showing on his face. You'd have to be a fucking moron not to keep out of the way of him right now.

When he gets to the corridor, he heads straight for the reception desk. Suddenly, his destination is obvious; he needs some sort of relief from all this shit, and it's not hard to figure out how to get it.

Byron is still sat behind the desk, cellphone in hand; it looks like he's playing _Candy Crush_. He looks up as Mickey strides over, quickly tucking the phone into a pocket as a smile spreads across his face.

"Hey, man," he drawls. "Did you, like, need to make an appointment, or something?"

"No," Mickey says firmly. "You get a break any time soon?"

Byron shrugs theatrically. "I'm, like, a slave to the modern world," he says. "There's no art in office work. You have to, like, make your time your own."

Mickey holds up an impatient hand. "I have no fucking idea what you're talking about," he tells Byron bluntly. The receptionist opens his mouth, presumably to explain; Mickey cuts him off. "I don't give a shit, either," he says. "Just fucking tell me when you get a break so you can get on me."

There aren't many moments in his life that Mickey would want photographic representation of, but this one definitely makes the grade; for a few moments, Byron just stares at him with his mouth wide open, his expression so comical that despite everything Mickey feels a smile twitch his lips a little. He wipes it away swiftly, waiting.

"Uh... yeah," Byron stutters, pushing his chair back. He trips slightly as he stands up, catching himself quickly on the edge of the desk; slowly, his incredulity is being replaced by enthusiasm. "Yeah, I can, like, totally take a break! Dude, _yes_. Totally."

"Alright, pipe down, Bridget Jones," Mickey says tiredly, rubbing the bridge of his nose with a forefinger and thumb. "You got somewhere we can go?"

"Sure, yeah," Byron says, blithely ignoring Mickey's weariness. "My dorm room is, like, one building over, and my roommate's away for the weekend. It's, like, meant to be!"

"Whatever," Mickey mutters. "Just lead the fucking way."

Byron is still grinning like an idiot as he steps out from behind the desk, gesturing for Mickey to follow; he pushes through the glass doors, out into the chilly air.

It's later in the day than Mickey had realised; the sun is low in the sky, squinting weakly down from behind a thick layer of clouds. It isn't snowing, but Mickey can tell it will do soon. Piles of dirty slush line the edges of the path down which Byron leads him, chattering inanely about the weather.

"These Chicago winters, man, they're, like, totally insane?" His tone makes the statement into a question. "I'm from Florida, you know, so this is, like, a total culture shock. I think that's, like, good, though, you know? Stepping out of your, like, comfort zone, or whatever. You can't, like, get too attached to one thing. Life is all about, like, _experience_ , you know?"

"Sure," Mickey grunts, realising that Byron seems to be expecting some kind of response. He's too tired to bother actually trying to shut the kid up.

Byron looks at him closely, a small hint of a smile curving his preppy face. "You're, like, the strong and silent type, right?" he says shrewdly. "I bet you, like, don't even talk to guys you fuck."

Mickey turns surprised eyes on him. "Nope," he says honestly. "Not about to start now."

Bryon shrugs in a carefree kind of way. "No problem, dude," he says. "That's, like, totally okay. To each their own, you know? I talk, like, _way_ too fucking much, you know? And balance is, like, the key to success. You and me, we're, like, perfectly balanced. Yin and yang," he finishes happily.

Mickey doesn't reply. Whatever floats the guy's boat.

There are a couple of students hurrying back and forth in the distance, backpacks slung over their shoulders and their heads hunched forwards against the cold, but other than that they don't see anyone until they get to a large red brick building. Byron swipes a card through a scanner next to the door, letting them in; Mickey feels distinctly overwhelmed as he follows the receptionist. College is so far past anywhere he ever thought he'd be, even as a visitor.

A couple of girls stand just inside, leaning against the wall and frowning in concentration as they talk to each other. Mickey only catches a couple of words, but he doesn't recognise any of them. Byron nods at them as he passes, but they barely even look at him.

"Who's that?" Mickey asks as Byron leads him up a flight of stairs.

"They live a few doors away from me," Byron says. "Usually they're, like, friendlier, but Annabel's, like, super focused on her research paper right now."

"Research paper," Mickey repeats blankly.

"Yeah, she's, like, looking at how women are represented in classical literature, with particular focus on, like, independence in the Bronte era," the receptionist replies, as breezily as if that's supposed to make any fucking sense at all.

"Right," Mickey says.

"Anyway, this is me," Byron says, stopping in front of a wooden door. He takes a set of keys out of his pocket, unlocking the door. "Just, like, ignore the mess, dude. I didn't know I was going to, like, have company!"

He holds the door open, and Mickey walks in. His first impression is that if Byron thinks this is messy, he should see the Milkovich house; other than a few clothes on the floor, and an untidy desk against one wall, the room is pretty much free of clutter. One of the beds is made; Byron leads the way to the second one, hastily straightening the covers before he sits down.

"So, like, do you want a drink?" he asks. He swallows slightly; Mickey realises, with a jolt of surprise, that Byron is nervous. It makes no sense at all; this is Byron's territory, after all. College, research papers, dorm rooms - it's fucking alien to Mickey. But then again, random fucking is more his game, and if you cut away all the other bullshit, that's what they're about to do. Maybe Byron isn't used to rough Southside boys as much as Mickey isn't used to drawling teenage hipsters.

"No drink," Mickey growls. "Take your fucking clothes off."

Byron gulps, but he's smiling as he complies. Underneath the tight button-down and skinny jeans, there's a set of abs that isn't half-bad; Mickey gives a breathless laugh as he lunges forwards, wrestling the receptionist to the bed.

Of course, the first thing the little idiot does is try to kiss him; Mickey turns away, unbuckling his belt. If he wasn't going to kiss Ian fucking Gallagher, he's definitely not kissing this moron. Byron seems to get this, however, and doesn't push it, reaching underneath the bed for lube and condoms.

The sex is... sex. Once upon a time, Mickey would have called it _good_ sex; the kid's not bad with his mouth, and he takes his time prepping Mickey before sliding inside. In and out, in a consistent rhythmic pace, until Mickey's coming in a hot sticky spurt onto his own stomach. It _is_ good sex, by any normal standard. It's just that the last person to fuck him was Ian fucking Gallagher, and it's hard to beat that kind of electrifying passion.

Afterwards, Byron gets up and fetches a damp flannel, using it to tenderly wipe up the evidence. He even cleans Mickey's ass; it's very domestic, and kind of weird. Mickey's not used to any kind of attention after sex, and the extent of his clean-up jobs usually runs to rubbing his spunk away with an old pair of boxers. Then, Byron clambers back into bed, and unbelievably, rests his head against Mickey's chest.

"That was, like, out of this world, dude," he sighs contentedly.

Mickey's rigid all over from the unexpected contact; he manages a: "Sure," through gritted teeth.

"You're, like, so fucking _experienced_ ," Byron says admiringly. "You must have, like, experimented _so much_ through sexual self-expression."

"Through what?" Mickey's still in a pleasant after-glow haze, so he doesn't snap as much as he would normally, but it almost sounds as though Byron's calling him a slut. He finds that he doesn't particularly object to this; it's gratifying that he manages to project a persona that deviates so far from the truth.

"Sexual self-expression," Byron says. "It's, like, one of the most important ways we can, like, discover ourselves, you know?" He lets out a martyred sigh. "I'm still, like, experimenting with it. I don't get the chance to express myself as often as I'd like."

Mickey lets out an amused snort. "Is that your way of saying you don't get laid enough?"

To his credit, Byron laughs. "Yeah, I guess," he admits. "Seriously, though, dude, you're, like, fucking amazing. Like, own it!"

Mickey feels his muscles relax slightly. He still doesn't particularly like the feel of Byron's curly head against his chest, but the kid's right. He may be a shit show in every other department, but sex? Yeah, he can own that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the amazing comments! I'm so enjoying posting this fic, and so happy that it's well-received. Enjoy! :)


	7. Broken

 

 

He must have slept, because the sun is lower in the sky outside the window when he opens his eyes next; Byron is still nestled awkwardly against his chest, snoring gently. For a few minutes, Mickey just lies there; he wonders vaguely if Ella's looking for him. It's disconcerting, having people who might actually be concerned about him; it's not a sensation he's used to.

There's the tickle of hair against his chest as Byron snuffles awake, tilting his head back to look up at Mickey. "Hey," he says sleepily. Mickey feels a brief flash of relief that the word 'like' didn't feature in his after-sex greeting.

"Yeah," he mumbles back, because Byron seems to be expecting it. "Um, look, man, I should..." He trails off.

Byron props himself up on a skinny elbow, adopting a mock-annoyed expression. "Are you, like, trying to bail on me?"

Mickey coughs awkwardly. "They're probably looking for me."

"Sure they are," the receptionist says drily, although without rancour.

Mickey doesn't say anything for a few moments, looking around the little bedroom. There's a large Slash poster hanging at an angle above the bed on the other side of the room; Mickey figures that must belong to Byron's absent roommate, because the receptionist doesn't exactly strike him as a Guns 'n' Roses fan. His eyes flick back to Byron; he's still and silent, watching Mickey.

"I'm supposed to be helping them," Mickey says in a rush. "They think I can... fuck, I don't know," he finishes lamely, unsure of how much he's allowed to tell anyone. "They all just fucking look at me like I'm trash. Ian fucking Gallagher."

"Who's Ian Gallagher?" Byron asks.

Mickey feels his lips twitch despite himself. "Sexual self-expression," he says.

A sly grin curves Byron's lips; he sits up a little, looking at Mickey with disconcertingly twinkly eyes. "Oh, yeah?"

Mickey knows Byron doesn't mean anything by it. He's just curious, and maybe even a little impressed; that doesn't stop a hot prickle of shame washing through Mickey. He's just fucked this skinny camp idiot, and yet he still feels the familiar instinct to run away and hide when he thinks about Gallagher. Like Gallagher is something... something private, secret. Something that needs protecting.

Mickey snorts. He's the last person Gallagher will ever need to protect him.

Unwillingly, he can feel the new memories begin to seep into his head; he figures that the adrenaline of getting fucked has kept them out until now. Byron is still looking at him, his eyes glittering wickedly. Mickey shrugs, as best he can with the receptionist still half-sprawled above him.

"We used to bang," he says noncommittally.

Byron waits for about three and a half seconds before he's making bug-eyes at Mickey, waving a hand for him to continue. "And? Come on, dude, there's, like, obviously a story there."

Mickey sighs in frustration. "Christ, you're fucking annoying," he mutters.

Byron just grins. "Spill," he says firmly.

"Fine," Mickey huffs. "There's fuck all to it anyway. We banged, his fucking boss fucking shot me after he caught us, and I never fucking saw him again."

"His boss shot you?" The receptionist sounds suitably impressed, and despite himself Mickey feels vindicated. "Homophobic much?"

Mickey barks out a laugh. "He was doing the kid before I was."

Byron nods knowingly. "Jealous ex," he says. "I've, like, totally been there." He pauses. "Well, not, like, shooting the new guy been there. But I've, like, dealt with jealous exes before. So how come you never saw Ian again?"

Mickey shrugs, as carefree a gesture as he can manage. It's not quite true that he never saw Ian again; the kid had come to visit him in Juvie, and they'd almost had a moment. He shakes his head. _Had a moment_. He's turning fucking soft.

"Well?" Byron presses.

"Don't know," Mickey grunts. "I got out of Juvie, and he stopped coming round. That's all."

"You were in Juvie?" Byron asks with interest. Mickey ignores him. It's fucking ridiculous that thinking about Ian should be painful; they'd barely been fucking for five minutes, and it was years ago now. More to the point, none of it really happened; an hour ago, Mickey hadn't even had these memories. But apparently his body isn't listening to reason, because a jolt of something hot and sharp is boiling in his chest at the mere thought of Ian fucking Gallagher.

"I should go," he says abruptly, sitting up without warning so that Byron falls off his chest.

"Um... okay," the receptionist replies, sounding disappointed. "Maybe I'll, like, see you later?"

"Whatever," Mickey says, tugging his pants on. "See ya."

A few minutes later, he's outside, shivering in the chilly afternoon breeze; a light snowfall has started, with tiny flakes swirling around his ears. He hunches his shoulders against the cold, pulling his scarf tighter around his neck. He figures he should probably go back to the lab, although he's much more tempted just to go home.

"You done?" The voice surprises him; he looks sharply to his left, and groans. Lip stands a few feet away, leaning against a tree.

Mickey fumbles in his pocket for a smoke. "You following me now, Gallagher?" he asks, cupping his hand around his mouth as he lights the cigarette.

Lip shrugs. "Can't let you get too far," he says. "Ella decided we should have a break anyway."

"Yeah, I bet she did," Mickey grouches. "The fuck am I supposed to do now anyway? I got nothing else to change." He can't make Gallagher want to see him, is what he wants to say. But he doesn't. He shouldn't care anyway. He _doesn't_ fucking care. None of it is real anyway.

Lip doesn't answer this. Instead, he just gives a quick gesture with his head, back towards the research lab. "Come on," he says.

Mickey takes a deep drag on the cigarette. He could argue, but frankly he can't be bothered; the listlessness that's plagued him his whole fucking life hangs heavy on him. He takes one quick look around him - the grass heavy with snow, the spindly trees dotted around campus with one or two students walking swiftly underneath them - and then follows Lip.

Predictably, they head back to the lab; Mickey figures abstractly that it's a good thing Lip came to find him, because Byron sure as hell isn't there to let him in. Lip rubs his hands together as he walks inside, shivering in a thin jacket and no gloves. Maybe Ella made him leave in a hurry to come find Mickey. Mickey feels a vindictive pleasure in the thought.

Downstairs, the team is waiting almost exactly as he left them; apparently Mickey is the only one with anything close to a social life, because Ella's idea of taking a break seems to be sitting at her desk frowning at some enormous brown manila files with a pair of glasses perched on her nose. She looks up as Lip leads Mickey over.

"Ah, Mickey," she says, taking off her glasses and letting them dangle from one finger. "You've returned to us."

"Did I have a choice?"

Her gaze lingers on him for a moment, the tiniest hint of a smile appearing at the corner of her mouth. "Let's get back to it. Are you feeling prepared, Ian?"

Mickey raises his eyebrows, turning to look behind him. An all-too-familiar jolt shivers through him as he takes Ian in. This beautiful man who left him behind.

Ian doesn't look at Mickey. "Yeah, I think so," he says.

Only then do Ella's words sink in. Mickey swings back around to glare at Ella. "You're sending _him_ in?" he demands.

Ella looks back at him impassively. "Yes," she answers. "Ian's filled us in on what happened. We don't think you can change this memory as effectively as he'll be able to."

Well, no shit, since there's pretty much nothing Mickey can think of that he'd be able to do to change Ian not wanting to see him. He looks back at Gallagher.

"You sure you're up for this?" he asks brusquely.

Now Gallagher meets his eyes, his gaze cold and steady. "You did it," he says coolly. "How hard can it be?"

Mickey shrugs, dragging his gaze away. "Right," he mumbles.

Ian looks back at Ella. "Let's go," he says.

There's nothing much for Mickey to do but follow Lip over to the chairs in front of the projector screen; he can't decide if he's pissed off or relieved that he doesn't have to go into the next memory. It's been kind of nice, getting to redo some of the shit he regrets, but at the same time he's curious to know what it'll feel like to have someone else change his past.

Ian doesn't even glance his way as he follows Ella over to the mirror contraption; Mickey has the distinct impression that the redhead is pissed with him, but he has no idea why. He barely even knows the kid; is he still sore that there's a version of history out there where Mickey attacked him? Or maybe - the idea hits Mickey like a baseball bat - he's pissed that Mickey changed the past to make them fuck? Sure, _past_ Ian was up for it, but present Ian might feel as though Mickey took advantage of a teenager. Which maybe he did. It's kind of hard to figure it out; this past and present bullshit is messing with his head.

"Kind of feel like I should be doing this one." It's Lip, speaking at his elbow; Mickey jumps. He'd forgotten Lip was even there.

Lip is looking at Mickey somewhat speculatively, but Mickey has no fucking idea what the moron is talking about, so he just goes with an eloquent: "Huh?"

Lip shrugs, letting his jacket slide from his shoulders and tugging it off. His hands are blotchy and purple from the cold outside; he rubs them together briskly until they start turning pink. "Ian stopped coming to see you, right?" he says. "Well, I guess that's my fault." His shoulders hunch up briefly. "I told him to leave it. You."

Mickey looks at him sideways; he wants to feel pissed off, but he finds that he doesn't. "Whatever, man," he says tiredly. "He didn't have to listen to you."

"Guess not," Lip agrees. He glances at Mickey. "You wonder why he did?"

_More than anything_. "No," Mickey replies flatly. "Not like any of this shit is real, anyway."

Lip makes a little snorting sound of disbelief, but he doesn't push it. "Okay," is all he says.

Mickey lets himself slump in the uncomfortable plastic chair. Ian looks like some kind of alien, twisted up in all those wires; someone is cranking the lever to start the process. He blanks Lip out, just concentrating on Ian. Ian fucking Gallagher. They've never really had a relationship; no matter how many memories they change, the truth is that in this reality, they're little more than strangers. They haven't even had a fucking conversation. And yet... and yet Mickey finds himself going over everything, trying to pinpoint exactly what it is he might have said or done to piss Gallagher off, because they're not strangers. They're something more.

A strand of Ian's bright red hair has fallen across his forehead, trapped in an unnatural position by the electrodes pinned to his skull. Mickey's hands twitch in his lap; he tightens them into fists, amazed by the overpowering desire to push that little bit of hair out of Ian's eyes. To stroke his face. To kiss him.

_He's not afraid to kiss me_. Ian's voice, unmistakably Ian, always Ian. A memory that isn't a memory, a change they haven't made yet. Mickey sits up in shock as he hears it; he has no idea what it means, but one day in their changed past Ian is going to say it to him.

And he's not the only one to hear it, because just as the lights start to brighten and glow around him, Ian's head turns so quickly Mickey's afraid he'll get whiplash, and his green eyes meet Mickey's gaze. Mickey doesn't have to ask. Ian heard himself say those words as well.

Like they needed any more proof that they're connected.

"Christ, that looks fucking painful," Lip says. Mickey ignores him, although he feels his lip curling derisively; Lip didn't care so much when it was Mickey trussed up in that machine. He focuses on Ian, on Ian's face and eyes, and when Ian steps forwards and disappears into one of the golden glowing mirrors, Mickey feels the loss of him like a physical blow.

The projector screen flickers above them, and Mickey turns to stare at it immediately. Slowly, a scene appears in front of them; it's Lip, sitting on the same bed he sat on when he told Mickey that he'd done something to change the world. Lip starts beside him, obviously taken aback to see himself from someone else's eyes. Figures, Mickey thinks. Assholes never think about how other people see them.

The little bedroom in the Gallagher house is very similar to how Mickey remembers it from... shit, was it really only yesterday? There are some subtle differences, though. The sun is strong in the sky outside the window, giving off a healthy summer beam that couldn't be further from the thin wan rays currently glinting off the high windows of the lab. Lip wears a tank top and shorts, a pair of battered track shoes laced onto his feet where he sits by the window, an unlit cigarette hanging from his lips. A thick pile of complicated-looking textbooks lies in a sprawling mess on the desk beside him; from what Mickey can understand by reading the titles, which isn't much, they are some form of advanced mathematics.

"I'm just saying, man," Lip says. The real Lip, sitting beside Mickey, jumps in his seat at the sound of his own voice; Mickey gives him a sideways glance, but otherwise ignores him.

The on-screen Lip pauses to light his cigarette, his thumb fumbling on the lighter as he aims the tip at the flickering flame. Once the cigarette is lit, he takes a deep drag from it, exhaling in a small cloud of grey smoke. Then he looks straight at the camera - which, Mickey supposes, means he's really looking into Ian's eyes. He wishes that Ian was actually visible, but the projection is playing as though they _are_ Ian. That makes him feel a bit better about everyone seeing him and Ian getting it on; since Ian was behind him, most of what they would have seen was the headboard. And a nice shot of Ian's cock, but it's not like the guy has anything to be ashamed of.

"Onwards and upwards," Lip says. It takes Mickey a moment to realise he's still on the same train of thought; it's taken him several minutes to actually finish his sentence. Lip goes on, "Roger Spikey, Mickey Milkovich? The only way is up, my brother."

Mickey stiffens, looking at the real Lip, who is sitting incredibly still beside him as if hoping that Mickey will forget he's there. When he catches Mickey's eye, he gives a small shrug; Mickey forces his eyes back to the screen.

He hadn't fully taken in what Lip had said before, about being the one to convince Ian not to see him any more. Of course, Lip doesn't think he's good enough for Ian; that doesn't really bother him, because why would anyone think he's good enough for Ian? _He_ doesn't even think he's good enough for Ian. But Lip knew. All that time ago, Lip knew they were together, because Ian told him. The fear of that discovery runs through Mickey like a blade of ice.

"You saying I shouldn't go with Mandy to pick him up?" Ian's voice, disembodied, sounds from the speakers next to the projector screen. Mickey's eyes involuntarily flick up at the sound.

Lip shrugs, inhaling another lungful of smoke. "If you want to be Papa Milkovich's fifth conviction, go right ahead," he says.

There's a pause, and Mickey imagines that this is where Ian sits down, sighs, admits that Lip is right, and decides never to see Mickey again. He realises he's holding his breath; why should Ian choose him over his brother? He doesn't even know Mickey, definitely doesn't seem to like him. Sure, the whole world might hang in the balance, but Ian Gallagher doesn't seem like the kind of guy to make choices for anyone but himself.

"Mickey wouldn't let that happen," Ian says, his voice strong and certain. Mickey blinks. Surely Ian doesn't really have that much faith in him?

"Nicely played," he mutters. Lip - the real Lip - turns at the sound of his voice, shaking his head.

"No," he says. "He said that last time."

Mickey raises an eyebrow. "So how did you change his mind?"

Lip doesn't answer, gesturing towards the screen; Mickey looks, his heart beating fast. He tells himself furiously that he shouldn't care about any of this; it isn't really his past, none of it is fucking real, he doesn't fucking care what Ian Gallagher thinks of him. And yet... and yet the memories of Ian, of being with Ian, of being fucked by Ian, held by Ian, laughed at by Ian, crowd his brain, delicious and tantalising and horribly frustrating because none of them are happening _now_ , which means none of them ever really happened and he has nothing real to hold on to.

On the screen, the viewpoint shifts slightly as Ian goes to sit on a chair opposite the bed; Lip's face is now level to Ian's. Lip says derisively: "If I was an idiot enough to trust a Milkovich to protect me it sure as fuck wouldn't be Mickey. You ever seen him stand up to the old man?" He laughs, the sound scornful and patronising. "Besides, how many dudes do you think he has riding him in Juvie? I doubt he's been sitting around pining for you."

The real Lip looks down at his hands, folded neatly in his lap. So this was how he managed to stop Ian from seeing Mickey. Not by convincing Ian that he was too good for a Milkovich thug, but by convincing him that said thug would have moved on to someone else. Fucking Lip Gallagher.

It's all bullshit anyway, because actually Mickey had thought about Ian a few times in Juvie. He wouldn't call it _pining_ , because he's not some kind of faggot, but yeah, he wondered how the kid was doing. And sometimes he'd think about him when he was jerking off, or when he saw someone with red hair, or when he couldn't sleep. Fuck Lip.

Mickey looks over at Lip, and even that bigheaded moron must be able to see the absolute fucking murder in Mickey's eyes, because he shrinks away slightly, holding up his hands. "All in the past, Mickey," he says in a warning tone, his eyes flickering about, searching for help.

"So's everything," Mickey snarls. "You're a fucking asshat, Gallagher."

"I don't care." The words don't come from Lip; they belong to Ian, on the screen. Mickey wheels around to look up; Ian has obviously stood up again, and his feet are slightly visible right at the bottom of the screen as he looks down at Lip. He says again: "I don't care who he's been fucking. I'm going to meet him anyway."

The scene rotates as Ian wheels around, heading through his bedroom door, out into the narrow corridor - passing a young Carl as he dashes into the bathroom - and down the stairs. Debbie is sitting on the couch, watching some trash on TV; Ian's gaze flicks first to the television screen, on which a couple of heavily made-up reality stars are having a catfight, and then to his little sister. Perhaps it's Mickey's imagination, but he can almost sense Ian's gaze softening.

"Hey, Debs," Ian says. His voice is soft. The little girl twists around in her seat, looking utterly different to the pregnant teen Mickey saw last time he was at the Gallagher house. Ian seems to be thinking along the same lines, because he unexpectedly vaults the couch and wraps a surprised Debbie into a hug.

The edges of the screen are beginning to flicker again; that swirling golden mist Mickey has become so accustomed to engulfs the Gallagher living room, and Ian’s viewpoint pans up, towards it. The picture fades and dims, and then goes completely black.

A heavy gasp has Mickey’s head whipping from the projector screen to the circle of mirrors; Ian is suddenly there, collapsing onto his knees, the electrode helmet trembling on his head. Mickey’s up in a second, though he holds himself back from racing over. He leaves that to Lip, who quickly overtakes him, running over to his brother.

“Ian? You okay?” Lip asks.

Now Ella is walking over as well, her heels clicking on the hard flooring; Olivia is behind her, puffing to keep up. Even Arun is making his way towards Ian. It’s like he’s some kind of magnet, drawing people in, and it’s all Mickey can do not to be sucked in with the rest of them. He forces himself to stay back, arms hanging loosely by his sides, watching as the researchers unplug Gallagher from the machine and escort him over to the little station where Professor Reston is waiting.

They walk past him, a little knot of people, all gathered around Ian in a way they’ve never been gathered around Mickey. Not one of them look at him. Mickey waits to be sure. They never look up. Not even Gallagher.


	8. Angels

 

 

He knows that Olivia will be taking down Ian’s impressions of the memory, working out how it changed history, but he doesn’t bother going over to listen, figuring he’ll work it out on his own. It seems ridiculous that a second ago, Gallagher was defending him to his brother, while now in the present day he won’t even look at Mickey; he sits down heavily in the uncomfortable plastic chair, unable to prevent his head dropping into his hands.

He can see it happening, as though in slow motion: he walks out of Juvie, flipping off the guards as he strides past them, and sees his little sister standing waiting for him, a smile on her thin face. And beside her, an arm casually slung around her pale neck, is Ian Gallagher, looking taller and more muscular than Mickey had remembered from his brief visit months ago. Mickey doesn’t talk to him, focusing all his attention on Mandy, and rejecting the arm that Gallagher attempts to wrap around him as they leave the detention centre, but he can tell Ian doesn’t mind by the quick grin he flashes Mickey over the top of Mandy’s head.

Later, they fuck in the dugout by the baseball pitch, and it’s fucking glorious. Mickey practically cheers as he comes, and Gallagher gives him that lazy, pleased-with-himself smile that Mickey’s come to know so well. The memories flash through Mickey’s brain, day after day until the summer is nearly over, and then suddenly he’s in Juvie a second time, and this time he really thinks Ian won’t be waiting around for him.

He takes a moment at this point to curse fucking Frank Gallagher to all hell. Seriously, the fact that the drunken asswipe is still alive at this point beggars belief.

Mickey’s fingers dig unconsciously into his skull, massaging his temples as the visions come rushing in. It’s not like the previous couple of times, where just a few key memories were changed; this edit has altered _years_ of Mickey’s life. And he’s wrong, because Ian is still there, ready for Mickey to walk back into his life when he gets out of Juvie. This one singular change that Ian pulled – one sentence he spoke to Lip, one turn to propel him downstairs and out the door to the detention centre – has altered far, far more than Mickey, with his fists and his cock, taking a beating from his dad and taking it up the ass from a ginger teenager, has accomplished thus far.

Typical fucking Gallagher. He even has to do _this_ better than Mickey.

He can remember… so much. Gallagher, striding alongside him through the school halls. Gallagher’s naked back, stretched out underneath the midday sun while Mickey shoots at beer cans on the wall and pretends not to be looking. Gallagher, too tall to fit on the little stool behind the counter at the fucking Kash & Grab, eating illicit donuts as he tells Mickey – his hands gesticulating more and more animatedly – the path he’s mapped out for himself for the future. Gallagher, his arms folded defiantly across his chest and his chin lifted against Mickey’s scornful expression after he made a fucking _date_ with some grandpa.

_He’s not afraid to kiss me_. Gallagher, standing staring up at him in the makeshift training yard they’ve put together for him. Mickey just looks away, pretends not to have heard, but the words circle around his brain for hours and it’s no surprise at all that they’ve permeated into another universe.

Later on, the pull some heist at grandpa’s manor house, and Mickey does kiss him, because fuck Ian Gallagher if he thinks Mickey’s afraid of anything. It’s short – his brothers and cousins are just a few feet away, breaking into the house – and despite what he might tell himself, Mickey’s hands are shaking and sweaty. Gallagher’s lips taste of cigarette smoke and peppermint and something else that Mickey can’t put his finger on; something sweet and sharp at the same time, something that reminds him of the delicious slide of Ian’s cock in his mouth. The memory revolves in his mind for days afterwards, becoming the main focus of his fantasies at night as he tries to awkwardly jerk off without lying on his back because of the fucking bullet hole in his ass.

And the sex. There’s so much fucking that Mickey groans under the weight of the memories, lust and frustration coursing through him in equal measures. They have secret hidden spaces all over the Southside: abandoned buildings, isolated corners under the El, flat rooftop gardens that no one knows about, the dugout, the van in the Gallagher’s back yard. Occasionally, in the rare instance that no one is home in one of their houses, they actually fuck in a bed. Or on a couch. Or a kitchen table. Or crammed into Gallagher’s tiny downstairs toilet, hands covering each other’s mouths because Fiona is asleep upstairs.

In reality – in this reality – Mickey only has one real-life memory of having sex with Ian Gallagher, and even that occurred in a past dream. But in _that_ reality… Mickey almost feels jealous of his other self, because that guy got to have all this. Got to know Ian’s body, to hear the subtle tells in his voice and see the slight changes in body language that show that Gallagher is horny, or tired, or pissed, or hungry. That guy got to spend hours looking at a thousand red freckles, dotted like stars across Gallagher’s body, sprinkled on his muscular arms as they wrap around Mickey’s body and Ian presses deeper and deeper into him, filling him up, thrusting again and again against Mickey until they’re just one body, one sweaty, delicious mess of a body and they’re coming together and it’s like being high except better.

Great. Now he has a hard-on.

Surely, surely, the memories have to stop coming? Has Gallagher just fucking done it? Done what Mickey couldn’t, fixed the universe in one fell swoop? Because now there’s another vision, and it looms up dark and enormous in Mickey’s brain, obliterating everything else. Ian, flush against him, fucking him against the couch in the Milkovich living room, one hand cupped around Mickey’s injured ass, and then… then, fuck, then his dad is crashing across the room, and he’s screaming and there’s pain and blood and fuck, fuck, _fuck_! Terry’s fist smashes into Ian’s face, and blood streams in a stark line from his nose down his chest.

Mickey blinks furiously, trying to push the memory away, because who gives a shit about the universe splintering if he gets to avoid this pain? Not the physical pain – although that had been considerable, with Mickey’s face a purple pulp by the end of it all – but the pain of seeing Ian’s face, contorted with emotion, as some whore that Terry had called in to fuck him until he liked it sits on top of Mickey. Ian’s eyebrows are creased, his mouth twisted, blood still pouring from his nose and tears leaking from his eyes, tracking down his face. He’s still almost naked, and still so fucking beautiful, and Mickey knows that if he doesn’t convince his dad that Terry will kill them both, so he turns away from Ian’s tortured eyes and fucks the whore into the couch.

A low moan of horror escapes Mickey’s lips before he can stop himself; he touches his cheeks, and finds them wet. Angrily, he dashes the rogue tears from his face, and looks up.

Ian Gallagher is standing in front of him.

For a few moments, neither of them speak; Mickey knows he must look like a fucking pussy, sitting hunched over in this stupidly uncomfortable chair all by himself with tears in his eyes, gazing pathetically up at some guy he’s never even had a conversation with, at least not in this life. But at that second, he doesn’t care, because the memory he just witnessed has left him shaken to his core.

“You okay?” Ian asks. Mickey just blinks at him. Gallagher isn’t fucking stupid; he must have the memory as well.

“The fuck do you think, asshole?” he says, his voice louder than he intended. He looks past Gallagher; the little team over by Professor Reston are all watching him, some of them having swiveled in their seats in order to do so. He realizes that Ian must have recounted this terrible memory to them already.

“Feel better?” Ian asks. His lips, impossibly, twitch. “Get it all out of your system.”

“Fuck you,” Mickey says tiredly. “You did it, Gallagher. Changed the entire fucking course of history. Can’t you just leave me the fuck out of it now?”

Instead of answering, Gallagher just sits beside him. “That was heavy,” he comments.

Mickey snorts. _Heavy_. That’s one way of putting it.

“For the record, I think what you did after was really fucking brave. Even if we have to change it.”

Mickey turns so sharply to look at Ian that he hears his neck click. “The fuck are you talking about?”

Ian’s expression turns quizzical. “You didn’t get that far yet?”

Mickey’s brow furrows, his eyes closing and his head sinking back into his hands as he thinks. What _had_ happened after all that shit went down?

He’d gone to hide in an abandoned parking lot, shooting bottles propped up on the window ledges and ignoring Gallagher when he came to try and find him. He’d sat, dully, at the kitchen table when Terry explained, all too forcefully, that he’d managed to impregnate the Russian whore he’d been made to fuck. He’d given the requisite nod when his father asked him – in a tone that indicated there was only one correct answer – if he intended to marry her, to give his child a future.

For days, he’d drifted around, almost unable to believe the almighty mountain of shit he’d managed to get himself buried under. Mandy was unsympathetic, irritated that he’d been stupid enough not to use a rubber; his brothers ribbed him about his score. He ignored them all. Terry went about everywhere with a smug smile on his face, clearly feeling himself victorious in the matter of Mickey’s sexuality, and bragged about his son’s impending marriage to anyone who would listen.

And then Gallagher had come to find him at last, disturbing him where he was drinking alone in the parking lot. Gallagher had shouted, Mickey had drunk until the bottle was empty, and then, in one glorious burst of revelation, he had dropped the bottle and kissed Ian.

It was only the second time they had kissed; this time, Mickey was able to appreciate the flavor of Ian, the delicious way their mouths meshed together. Gallagher’s tongue slipped between his lips, and it was like fireworks went off in Mickey’s brain, and for a few magnificent minutes he had forgotten why he had been so afraid of this.

Mickey looks over to Gallagher again. “We have to change that?” he whispers. Mickey’s not normally one for whispering, but this feels like a good moment to start, because that kiss was fucking _religious_.

Ian shrugs awkwardly. “It was really fucking brave,” he says again. “But…” He trails off, and Mickey realizes he still hasn’t remembered everything, because there are tears in Gallagher’s eyes.

What had he done? He’d gone home, where Terry and Mandy and a couple of his brother were sitting around the kitchen table smoking and playing poker with his wife-to-be. Svetlana, her name was; it sounded sharp and distasteful on his tongue.

He’d told Terry he wasn’t going to marry her. He’d figured that maybe with witnesses around, Terry’s reaction might be a little less extreme. He’d been wrong.

A fist, crashing down on the table, the cards and chips skidding across the rough wooden surface with the force of the impact. Terry looked like he could kill someone, and the gun he pulled from the waistband of his pants was enough to send everyone around the table diving for cover. He’d howled with rage, a wordless low-pitched snarl of wrath that left Mickey paralyzed, the way he always is in the face of his father’s ire. His father’s body was shaking in anger, but the pistol was completely steady in his iron grip as he brought it up to point directly in Mickey’s face.

Mickey knew he was going to die, and in a way it was a relief; he’d be free of this shit show, and Gallagher would be safe. But Terry didn’t shoot him. He leaned in close, and when he spoke, his voice – though trembling with white-hot, barely-concealed fury – was surprisingly calm.

“This is your fucking fault,” he said quietly. And then, before Mickey could even attempt to guess what he was talking about, before he could speak or breathe or make the slightest move to stop him, the hand holding the gun swung to the left, and Terry’s index finger tugged twice on the trigger.

There was a scream.

A spatter of blood.

Svetlana slumped to the ground, and her shrieks were abruptly cut off. For the second time in as many realities, Terry killed a child he’d created.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here's the next edit! Just wanted to make sure I was completely happy with these next couple of chapters before I posted them. Enjoy, and as ever please post comments and concric!


	9. Cut

 

 

Mickey gradually becomes aware of a loud buzzing sound ringing in his ears; his hands have moved, quite unconsciously, to cover them, and he’s clapping them somewhat painfully against the sides of his head. The image of Svetlana, the wife he hadn’t wanted or cared about, dropping like a rag doll to the floor, won’t leave his head. What has Ian done? What has he created?

“Mickey?” Ian’s voice is gentle, concerned. It’s the first time he’s addressed Mickey by name, and that revelation is enough to force his hands down from his ears and look up.

He doesn’t have a clue what to say. He’s witnessed some pretty disturbing shit in his life; seen Terry beat the crap out of too many people to count, breaking bones, reveling in a life of blood and bruises. Assault, battery, manslaughter – you name it, his father has done it, with his fists if no other weapon comes to hand, but more often preferring the heavy blunt force of a steel pipe or a baseball bat. Guns, too, are often among Terry’s arsenal, although more often used as a threat than actually fired. Mickey _has_ seen him fire it, though; seen bullets tear through muscle and flesh, blood spraying in all directions as the unfortunate victim screams in pain, clutching at whatever part of their anatomy Terry has decided to abuse.

He’s seen all that, and more. But he’s never, ever seen his father turn a gun in such a calculated way, and shoot someone in such clear, cold fury.

He didn’t even _look_ at her as he murdered her.

Ian places a tentative, warm hand on Mickey’s upper arm. He doesn’t rub or soothe, which Mickey might have reflexively rejected; just lets it rest. “You okay?” he says, somewhat lamely.

Mickey doesn’t even bother pointing out what a fucking stupid question that is. His head drops a little, and he rubs his forehead with the heel of his hand. He says, wearily: “Fuck!”

“I know,” Ian says sympathetically.

Mickey turns to look at him. “You weren’t there.” There’s no hint of a question in his voice, but Gallagher understands that he’s asking one anyway.

“I was outside,” he says. “I heard the shot.”

“You came running in,” Mickey finishes for him, remembering as Ian speaks. The stupid kid had come sprinting straight over to him, and for a wildly inappropriate second he’d actually smiled at Mickey. Then he’d seen Svetlana and the blood, and understood.

As if following his train of thoughts, Ian says: “I thought it must have been you. I was actually relieved when I saw you standing there.” His tone is bitter.

“My… my…” Mickey can’t finish. Who knows if it had even been his fucking son? He can’t bring himself to regret the loss of a baby forced upon him, but the murder of a child is still shocking, horrific. It brings back, in stark clarity, the memory of Mandy, hunched over on the floor, wailing as she cradled the dead bloodied body of her son to her chest.

“We’re going to change it,” Ian says firmly. Mickey looks at him incredulously.

“It still fucking happened, Gallagher!” he says, his voice rising. “Fuck, how many realities have we fucking created now? How many different versions? We can fuck around with these memories as much as you want, but we’ll still fucking have them. I’ll _never_ be able to… to unsee that!”

Gallagher is silent, and Mickey impatiently shrugs the large pale hand from his arm. Impossibly, against everything he’s seen and experienced today, he still _wants_ Ian, can feel the rush of wanting him rising up just from proximity. It’s fucking pathetic.

He looks up, past Gallagher and the projector screen. The researchers have tactfully melted away to complete other tasks; Ella is standing beside Professor Reston’s desk, and the quiet hum of their conversation is just audible from this distance. Someone – Arun, judging by the hair – is polishing one of the mirrors in the circle. Mickey’s impressed despite himself; that’s not a job he’d relish, knowing as he does the purpose of those mirrors.

Lip is standing somewhat awkwardly a few feet away, just far enough that Mickey can be confident that he can’t clearly hear Mickey and Ian’s conversation, if it can be called that, but still beadily watching them just the same. Mickey gives him bug-eyes, but Lip doesn’t avert his gaze, and Mickey isn’t in the mood to push the issue. No doubt he’s checking to see the neighborhood thug isn’t terrorizing his little brother, ready to jump in at the slightest fucking indication that that might be the case.

Ian sees the direction of his gaze. “He’s just worried about me,” he says uncomfortably.

Mickey grunts somewhat derisively. “Of course he is,” he says. “I’m such a fucking danger, right?”

Gallagher’s mouth twists, and Mickey realizes that he’s trying to find a way to contradict him, and failing. “No,” he says, but his tone is doubtful.

“Fuck’s sake,” Mickey hisses, on his feet before he knows it. “This is a fucking joke.”

Ian stands as well, a little more slowly. “What is?” When Mickey doesn’t answer, he tries another hand on Mickey’s forearm, his fingers brushing bare skin this time. “What is?” he repeats.

That simple touch… It’s the first time he’s felt Ian’s skin against his own, in this reality alone. All the rest is just fucked-up memories and pointless lust, and Mickey can feel the fucking _unfairness_ of it all building up in his chest in a thick rush. All of a sudden he’s _angry_ , more furious than he has been all day, and it’s all Ian fucking Gallagher’s fault. He’s been dangled in front of Mickey like a carrot in front of a donkey, unattainable, unreachable, accessible only through memories that Mickey has never really experienced. It’s like watching a film of someone else’s life, and he’s achingly, horrendously resentful of everything that some other Mickey, in some other universe, was allowed to experience and to have.

He wheels around, turning on Gallagher, and out of the corner of his eye he sees Lip immediately peel away from the wall he’s leaning against and start over towards them. “This!” he snarls at Ian. “This whole fucking shit show, this bullshit. You and your precious brother, all of you fucking better than me, huh?”

“No one ever said—” Ian starts, but Mickey cuts across him.

“Fuck you and what no one ever said,” he says flatly. “None of you fucking had to.” He casts his eyes around the lab; almost everyone in the room is looking at him, and both Ella and Olivia have taken tentative steps towards him. “Yeah, I’m talking about you!” Mickey says, raising his voice so no one can be in any doubt that he’s addressing the whole room. “Your fucking coats and your stupid machines and your fucking…” – he pauses for a moment, eyeing Ella – “…noisy shoes,” he finishes. “Just looking at me with that look… _that_ look!” He points at Arun, who bears an expression of irrefutable revolted contempt. “The fuck do you think you all are, anyway? You called _me_ here! Not fucking good enough for you,” he sneers at Ian. “You wanna act like I’m trash, fine. The hell do I care, anyway?”

“I never acted like you were trash!” Gallagher’s expression is appalled.

Mickey gives a derisive laugh. “Sure you didn’t,” he says. “You look at me like you hate me.” That comes out much needier than he’d intended; he gives Ian a small shove to the chest to deflect attention from it.

A snorting laugh comes from somewhere behind Ian; Mickey turns furiously flashing eyes on Lip, who instantly holds up his hands. “Oh, come on,” he says, as though Mickey’s missing something stupidly obvious. “He doesn’t hate you, you moron.”

Mickey feels stupid, and embarrassed, without really knowing why. “The hell would you know?” he mumbles, but his words have lost their heat.

“Please, I’m his brother,” Lip answers, in the flat business-like tone of someone who’s presented an irrefutable argument.

Mickey feels his temper surging again. “You’re no fucking better, asshole,” he growls. “You fucking Gallaghers, you’re just as Southside as I am, you think I’m fucking scum!”

“No, we don’t,” Ian says, but it’s a weak protest at best.

“Don’t lump me in with that,” Lip says snidely.

“Fuck you,” Mickey shouts at Lip. “And fuck you!” he adds, turning to Ian. “Fuck you all.”

“Mickey—” Ian says helplessly, taking a step towards him.

“Stay the fuck away from me!”

“Mickey!” This time it’s Ella saying his name, walking swiftly towards him, her heels still clicking noisily. Mickey turns, and sees three or four other white-coated researchers making their way over to him, as well as the tall military man he had met when he first arrived. Ian is still trying to talk to him, but Mickey waves him away irritably, feeling cornered and beleaguered.

“Fuck you all,” he spits out. “Fuck you all!”

“Mickey!” Ian says.

“ _Especially_ fuck you,” Mickey says venomously to him, unable to help finding a perverse pleasure in repeating words from their joined memories.

“The fuck have I done?” Ian says, finally roused to anger.

“Oh, fucking nothing!” Mickey answers, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “You’ve fucking avoided me, you won’t even look at me, and when you do it’s like you hate me, and I have no fucking idea why you think you’re so much better than me!”

“I don’t!” Ian shouts.

“The fuck you don’t!”

“Oh, _come on_!” This is from Lip, and Mickey turns his head in yet another whip-fast motion to look at him. “He doesn’t think he’s better than you, he’s jealous!”

Ian, who had had his mouth open, about to make some biting retort, abruptly shuts it again.

“Jealous?” Mickey laughs scornfully. “Of what?”

“Of you sleeping with the receptionist, obviously,” Lip replies.

Whatever Mickey could possibly have imagined him saying, that was so far away from it that any response is driven out of his head. He just stares at Lip, his mouth hanging slightly open. Slowly, he turns his gaze to Ian.

Gallagher’s cheeks are flushed, but he meets Mickey’s stare determinedly, and his chin lifts slightly in a gesture of defiance that Mickey recognizes dimly from former times. His arms fold across his body, although Mickey sees a tremble in his fingers that suggests that Ian isn’t as composed as he’d like to appear.

Mickey opens his mouth, closes it, and then opens it again. “Why the fuck...?” he begins, and then stops. _Why the fuck would Ian be jealous about_ that _?_ is what he wants to ask, but he doesn’t even know how to begin to put words to that question. He’d thought Gallagher seemed pissed about something, but the idea that it might be related to his escapades with Byron – or that Mickey’s sex life might even be on Gallagher’s radar – had not even occurred to him. Why would it? In this life, in this reality, they’re nothing to each other. They’ve barely even spoken. Gallagher has even less to tie Mickey to him than he’d had in other realities, and they’d never stayed faithful to each other even then.

He was just one in a long line of fucks for Gallagher. Even if he didn’t have the uncomfortable mix of memories tangled in his brain, he’d know that; just _look_ at the ginger fucker! He was tall, and broad, and delicious, and Mickey was… well, Mickey. Alright, maybe, but nothing to get fucking excited about. Why, in _any_ reality, should Ian give a flying fuck who Mickey banged?

Ian is watching him. “Why the fuck?” he asks, repeating Mickey’s question. “We _are_ meant to be soulmates, or some shit.”

He looks so reasonable, standing there saying these ridiculous, impossible things, that Mickey feels more and more humiliated. He doesn’t fit in here, classless among these rich scientists, but Gallagher does. It seems so fucking obvious so Mickey, yet Ian is still looking at him in a way he can’t understand. It makes his stomach clench in something hot and confused, something like a mixture of desire and frustration.

“Soulmates,” he repeats, injecting more skepticism into his voice than he really feels. Waiting for Ian to retract his ridiculous statement.

“Well, we did split an entire universe just by not being together,” Ian points out.

Mickey has no idea what to do with that response, so he just shuts up.

For a while, they just look at each other. Gallagher’s crossed arms are loosening, and Mickey sees with some consternation that a hint of a smile is beginning to play around his edges of his lips. His eyes are sparkling with mischief and amusement and… lust? In some dimension or other, Mickey _knows_ Ian, and he recognizes the expression on his face. Recognizes what Ian wants, even if he has no fucking clue why he could possibly want it.

There are people standing all around them now; Lip is barely three feet away, watching Mickey with an intensity that makes him feel uncomfortable. Everything in him is screaming at him to run, to get out, to hide somewhere far away from Ian’s bewildering eyes. Or, failing that, to lash out, to attack the way he had in that now-distant memory that he’d changed not so long ago. He remembers how Ian had wanted to kiss him then.

Mickey takes a deep breath. _Fuck it_. Yeah, he’s fucking scared. Gallagher represents everything he’s afraid of. But since when does a Milkovich run away from something they’re afraid of?

In one fluid motion, so swiftly that barely a second has passed before it’s complete, he surges forward, and before Ian – wide-eyed and surprised – can so much as blink, let alone formulate a question, he kisses him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in posting - Christmas prep has been getting in the way! The next few chapters may similarly experience delays, but I'll be back to a daily schedule after Boxing Day :) Enjoy!


	10. Rocket

 

 

For one awful moment, Mickey thinks that Ian will reject him. That he’ll push him away, in front of all these people. Mickey’s hands grip Ian’s upper arms, his mouth pressed hard against Ian’s. It’s not much of a kiss; quite frankly, Mickey doesn’t really know how to do it, so he just keeps his lips still and wills Ian to move. To do something. But Ian remains motionless against Mickey’s furious assault.

Then, just as Mickey is pulling away, humiliated, Ian’s mouth opens slightly, and his tongue swipes at Mickey’s closed lips. A lighting flash of desire pulses through him, and he pushes closer, feeling Ian’s hands beginning to close around his back. He lets his mouth open, his tongue sliding into Ian’s mouth, and for several glorious minutes loses himself in how fucking _awesome_ it feels to kiss Ian.

Un-fucking-surprisingly, it’s Lip who breaks up the party. “Yeah, okay,” he says loudly, stepping forward. Mickey screws his eyes up, trying to ignore the irritating sound of his voice, but Ian is already withdrawing, so Mickey stops kissing him quickly.

He turns to Lip, annoyed. “Can I fucking help you?” he asks belligerently.

Lip looks aggravatingly smug. “Hey, I know you guys are soulmates,” he says patronizingly, “but we’ve got shit to do, and there’s only so long I can watch my little brother sucking face without hurling.”

Mickey opens his mouth to retort back, but Ian laughs, and slings a casual arm around his shoulders. He closes his mouth again in shock. Ian says, easily: “Fuck off, Lip.” His arm is warm against the back of Mickey’s neck; Mickey waits for him to remove it, but he doesn’t.

There is a quiet, discreet cough from somewhere behind them, and Mickey turns his head slightly – not enough to dislodge Ian’s arm – to see Ella walking smartly over to them. She comes to a halt in front of them. “Lip’s right,” she says, her eyes travelling briefly over the pair of them, the slightest hint of amusement gleaming in them. “We do have a lot of work to do.”

She turns and marches away. Mickey turns to look at Ian, who shrugs, letting his arm fall from Mickey’s shoulders; Mickey tells himself firmly not to be a pussy and pretends not to miss its comfortable weight as he strides after Ella. Barely a footstep towards her, he feels a large, warm hand slip into his. He looks briefly at Ian, who looks steadily back at him, and decides not to comment.

They walk hand-in-hand over to the little gaggle of scientists, Mickey’s head whirling with a storm of conflicting thoughts. On the one hand, he’s holding Ian fucking Gallagher’s hand, in public, in front of a large group of judgmental fuckers including Ian’s smartass brother. His fingers twitch at the thought, and he has to resist the urge to rip his hand out of Ian’s grip, reminding himself that they all know anyway, that this is not what they’re judging him for, that he seriously could not give less of a shit about Lip Gallagher’s opinion. And that brings him to the other hand: _he’s holding Ian fucking Gallagher’s hand_. A feeling Mickey’s not used to bubbles up through his chest and emerges as a weird, constricted laugh that has Ian looking over to him to see what the matter is. It takes him a while to identify the feeling. It’s happiness.

Ella is waiting for them just outside the ring of mirrors. “I don’t think this is going to be easy, Mickey,” she says crisply. That wipes the giddy smile from Mickey’s face.

“Why?” he asks loudly. “What do I have to do now? Just stop the whore dying, right?”

Ella’s eyes narrow. “Just how simple do you expect that to be, Mr. Milkovich?” she asks in a hard voice. So they’re back to ‘Mr. Milkovich’. “What’s your plan? Are you going to dive in front of the gun? Face down an angry Terry Milkovich while he’s holding a loaded weapon?” He’s never heard her sound so heated.

Mickey shrugs. Truth be told, he has no idea how he’s going to stop Terry from killing Svetlana; he’s got through all the other memories by winging it. A thought occurs to him. “Why do we have to change it at all? I mean, Ian and I are still together, right?”

Ella takes a step forward, so that she’s right up close to his face. “Do you see the world fading, as we crash back into the correct reality?” she asks coldly.

“No,” Mickey says.

She takes a step back again. “Then I think it’s safe to say that those are not the circumstances under which you and Ian are meant to be together.”

“Okay, okay,” Mickey grumbles. “Why are you so fucking pissy with me?”

Unexpectedly, she rounds on him. “Because, Mr. Milkovich,” she says, her voice somehow managing to be both icy and white-hot, “your father just murdered your child, not to mention its mother, in front of you, and the best you can do is call her a whore and suggest that it would be better not to change it!”

Mickey feels a combination of shame and anger run through him. Of course he regrets Svetlana’s death! Does this bitch think he has no feelings at all? Of course she does, she thinks he’s Southside trash, and maybe he fucking is, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about what happened. He just has no idea how to express it. Even thinking about Svetlana is confusing; she was innocent, yes, but she still screwed him into the couch in front of Ian. Fucked the faggot out of him.

“Hey, back off,” Ian says. Mickey turns sharply to look at him, taken aback by his intervention; he’s frowning at Ella. “Why don’t you give him a chance, instead of judging him all the time?”

Ella’s eyes widen. “Judging? He called her a whore!”

“She was a whore!” Mickey says loudly, his hand involuntarily squeezing Ian’s. “She was a fucking paid-for whore, and Terry forced me to fuck her.” His voice cracks a little. “That doesn’t mean she deserved to die.”

Ella is watching him closely; looking around, he realizes that most of the occupants of the laboratory are watching him. That seems to be happening a lot at the moment. Ella says, “No?”

He stares at her. “Of course not,” he says. “You think I don’t care, just because I’m not crying about it like some pussy? Fuck you. I didn’t want that fucking whore, I didn’t want her fucking baby, and yeah, fuck it, I smiled for five fucking seconds because I was feeling happy about… something else,” he says lamely, shrugging vaguely towards Ian. “That doesn’t mean,” he continues forcefully, “that I don’t want to fucking kill my dad for what he did. Add it to the list of things I already hate him for. You didn’t care when you found out about what he did to my sister. You didn’t care when you found out about what he did to me. But God forbid I feel slightly fucking conflicted about the death of the whore who raped me!”

There’s a ringing silence around the lab when Mickey finishes speaking. Ella opens her mouth, but for once she doesn’t seem to know what to say; after a moment, she closes it again. Ian’s hand tightens around Mickey’s, and when Mickey glances at him, he gives him a brief smile.

“Hey, Mickey.” The voice that breaks the silence is timid, and when Mickey looks around he sees, of all people, fucking Arun standing there, holding a glass of water. Under Mickey’s glare he quails slightly, gulping, but he carries on bravely: “You want a drink? I can get you a sandwich or something if you’re, like, hungry?”

Mickey stares at him; Arun gives a tiny shrug, his wild curls bouncing on his shoulders. It’s a peace offering. Mickey clears his throat, sore from the shouting. “Yeah,” he says awkwardly, taking the glass. “Yeah… thanks.”

Arun gives him half a smile, and scurries away. Ella coughs. “Mickey, I apologize if… well, I apologize,” she says uncomfortably.

“Yeah, whatever,” Mickey says brusquely. “I’m sure finding out I have feelings must be a shock to you. Let’s just get this fucking thing done.”

Ella looks as though she wants to say something else, but clearly decides against it. “If that’s what you want,” she says.

Mickey nods firmly. “Okay, so what do I need to do?” he asks. “Maybe if I confront my dad when it’s just the two of us?”

“No fucking way,” Ian says flatly. “He’ll kill you.”

“I have to agree,” Ella says. “You know how dangerous your father is, Mickey.”

“Then what?” Mickey demands. “Run away? Like a fucking pussy?”

Ella hesitates, her eyes flicking over to Ian. “Actually, we think you should marry her.”

Dead silence follows this revelation. Then Mickey speaks, his voice a croak. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Beside him, Ian makes noises of vehement agreement.

Ella holds up her hands. “Believe me, it’s not a conclusion we’ve come to willingly,” she says. “We truly believe that your relationship is somehow pivotal to the realignment of reality, but that doesn’t mean that it will always be a conventional relationship.”

Mickey snorts. “It was conventional before?”

Ella ignores this. “We can’t see any other option that won’t result in someone getting hurt,” she says.

There’s a brief pause while they consider this. Then Ian says: “I won’t stay with him, if he does this. At least, I don’t think I will.”

Mickey’s neck aches with the number of times he’s whipped it around. He stares at Ian. “You won’t?” he asks, trying to keep the broken sound out of his voice.

Ian looks straight into his eyes, his expression stricken. “Here and now, I would,” he says, and Mickey can tell that he means it. “But back then…” He sighs. “I was right on the edge already, you know? You were so determined to keep me a secret, and it was messing with my fucking head.”

“I had a good fucking reason for it!” Mickey interrupts loudly, gesturing wildly towards the projector screen. How can Ian question his fear now? Now that he’s seen what Terry can do?

Ian squeezes his hand. “I know, I know,” he says. “I know that _now_. At the time… I just wanted you to acknowledge me. You always used to act like you didn’t give a shit about me.”

“I did,” Mickey insists. “I was just…” His voice breaks. “I was fucking scared, Gallagher.”

In that moment, it’s like it’s only the two of them in the room; Ian lifts his free hand, and raises it to briefly touch Mickey’s face. Then he grips the back of Mickey’s neck, drawing him in to kiss his lips and then his temple. Mickey gives a contented sigh, before he remembers where he is and turns it into a cough. Ian laughs.

“You’re still hiding now,” he points out, although without any heat.

“Tough habit to break,” Mickey growls, embarrassed.

“My point is,” Ian says, turning back to Ella, “that I’m pretty sure I’ll do something stupid, like confront Terry myself. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll do something even more stupid. Like leave him.”

Stark silence greets his words. At last, Ella says: “I’m not worried about you leaving him, Ian. Even if you do… well, let’s face it, you won’t be able to stay away for long.”

This thought makes the corners of Mickey’s mouth twitch, despite it all. “He’s fucking stubborn,” he says, pointing accusingly at Ian.

“Oh, please.” It’s Lip who speaks; he’s been listening to their conversation from behind them. “Look at the pair of you!”

“Ever heard of privacy, jackass?” Mickey says crossly.

“Not where my brother’s concerned,” Lip answers, taking a step towards him.

“Lip’s right,” Ella says briskly, before it can turn into a fight. “It’s obvious that neither of you can stay away from each other for very long. I’m not worried about that, although obviously,” she adds as though only just thinking of it, “it may be painful for you at the time. What’s essential is that Ian doesn’t confront Terry.”

“I’ll have to stop you,” Mickey says, thinking out loud.

“I’m persistent,” Ian warns.

Mickey gives him a sideways glance. “Yeah, I know,” he says fondly. Lip makes a retching noise behind him, and he flips him the bird without looking away from Ian. “I’ll have to be really fucking convincing.”

“Make me think you don’t want to be with me any more,” Ian says, sounding pained.

Mickey frowns. “Why? We can still… be together… even if I’m married, right?”

Ian shrugs, frowning unhappily. “It won’t be enough for me,” he says quietly. “You have to break up with me.”

“How the fuck am I supposed to do that?” Mickey says fiercely. Ian shrugs miserably.

“Hit him.” Both Mickey and Ian whirl around to face Lip; his face is twisted uncomfortably.

“The fuck, Gallagher?” Mickey exclaims.

“Explain,” Ella commands.

Lip bites his bottom lip. “Just something Ian said once,” he mumbles. Mickey’s not sure he’s ever seen Lip mumble before. “About Mickey.”

“What did I say?” Ian says. “I’ve said a shitload about Mickey.” Mickey can’t help smiling at that.

Lip shrugs. “I was worried about you being with… with…” He gestures helplessly at Mickey.

“With scum like me, I get it,” Mickey says drily. “Keep fucking going.”

“You said Mickey’s never hurt you,” Lip says quietly to Ian. “You said that was how you knew it was real. Because you knew he never would.”

Mickey laughs derisively. “And because of that you think I should hit him? That’s fucking nuts.”

Ian, however, is looking thoughtful. “I really believed that,” he says. “If you hit me… if you hurt me… I think that would work. Stop Terry from hurting anyone.”

“By hurting you myself!” Mickey bursts out. “That’s fucking ridiculous, Gallagher! I’m not fucking doing it.”

Ian smiles sadly at him. “You have to,” he says. “Ella’s right, as pissed as I’ll be, I won’t stay away for long.”

Mickey turns on Lip. “You said you were here to fucking protect him!”

Lip is looking at him oddly, but he rouses himself at Mickey’s words. “This _is_ me protecting him,” he says. “However you hurt him is nothing to what Terry could do.”

“But,” Mickey says, unable to prevent his voice cracking, “he won’t know that.” He swallows. “He’ll think I don’t… don’t care about him.”

“That’s the point,” Ian says.

Mickey swings wildly around to face Ella. Surely she’ll see how fucking crazy this idea is! But the expression on her face is pensive. “Are you sure about this, Ian?” she asks. “I think, all things considered, it’s the best course of action.”

“Why are you asking him?” Mickey shouts. “ _I’m_ not okay with this! I’m not fucking doing it, no fucking way.”

“Mickey,” Ian starts, but Ella overrides him.

“Mickey,” she says firmly. “I misjudged you before, and I’m sorry for it. I know you care about Ian. I understand why you don’t want to do this. But this is the best way to protect him, and everyone else involved.” She pauses. “I wouldn’t ask you to do this if I didn’t think you were courageous enough to see it through.”

Mickey’s breath is coming in heavy pants as he looks from one to the other. Courageous? No one has ever thought he was courageous in his entire fucking life, but Ian is nodding in agreement, and even Lip doesn’t look like he completely disagrees with Ella’s assessment. His mind is racing, scrambling for an alternative, but he can’t think of anything. He looks back at Ella, unable to meet Ian’s eyes.

“Fine,” he says unhappily. Ella exhales.

“Thank you,” she says. “Come this way, Mickey. I’m sure Arun will have some food ready for you when you’ve finished. You’re being very brave.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t overdo it,” Mickey mutters as she turns and makes her way into the circle of mirrors. He holds out his glass of water to Lip, who takes it.

Ian puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it briefly. “Make it good,” he says. “Break my nose, or something. Don’t pussy out.”

Mickey looks at him miserably. “Don’t hate me,” he says bleakly.

“Never,” Ian says quietly. He kisses Mickey, his mouth soft and warm, the kiss not lasting nearly long enough, and then it’s time.

Mickey takes a deep breath, and walks into the circle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2nd try posting this! Comments and concric always appreciated :) I should hopefully be back to a daily posting schedule now - just a few chapters left!


	11. Lost Stars

 

 

It’s pretty safe to say that Mickey hasn’t had the easiest life. He’s grown up with Terry Milkovich as a father; it would have been pretty fucking impossible for him to have what anyone could describe as a good, or even normal, childhood. He’s seen shit go down in every possible way; he’s seen his sister lose a baby, he’s been forced to fuck a prostitute, then seen her murdered in front of him. He’s been shot himself, by that pussy Kash. He’s seen Ian hurt in a thousand ways, by Terry, by Frank, by Monica, by that fucker Lip. He’s seen him injured, crying, blood streaming from his nose, damaged from the emotional pain his parents put him through, and it’s killed him every time. He’d thought it was the worst he could feel. He was wrong.

The horror of being the one inflicting that damage – it’s beyond anything Mickey can even describe, and he finds himself taking deep gulps from the bottle of whisky he’d brought out to the abandoned parking lot as he hurts Ian over and over again. He hits him – punches him, kicks him, watches his blood spatter across the graveled ground. Still Ian doesn’t cower, doesn’t run. Ian’s always been braver than he is.

 _“You love me, and you’re gay.”_ For once, the words don’t scare Mickey. They make him want to scream at the world, at his father and Ella for making this necessary. But he doesn’t; he just finishes the bottle, tossing it aside as Ian finally crumples at his feet.

“Feel better now,” he says in bitter irony, and then, mercifully, the golden mist begins to descend, and he lets his eyes close.

When he opens them again, he finds himself slumped on the floor in the centre of the circle of mirrors; no one has come to him this time. He figures they’re all too fucking pussy, scared of what he’ll do now that he’s back.

He doesn’t wait for them, ripping the carefully positioned electrodes off his head and practically _throwing_ the contraption to the floor. One of the researchers makes a scandalized noise, and hurries over to gather up the mess of wires from the ground. No one else makes a sound; Mickey puts the heels of his hands to his eyes and finds them wet.

“Mickey?” It’s Ian; when Mickey turns around, he sees that the redhead looks shaken, but determined. “You okay?”

Mickey stares at him. “Are you?”

Ian shrugs. “No lasting damage,” he says, although his mouth is downturned. “You want to go somewhere quiet? Arun got sandwiches.”

“They’re shit,” Lip puts in, striding forward towards Mickey. “Come on, man. You did good.”

Mickey, having expected Lip to give him the cold shoulder, allows himself to be led out of the circle, taken aback by the bracing support. He looks with consternation at Ian. “Hate me yet?” he asks, trying to inject humor into his tone. Gallagher doesn’t look fooled.

“Never,” he says, repeating his words from earlier. A sense of relief washes over Mickey. Ian steps forward and takes Mickey’s arm; Lip melts away into the group, and together Mickey and Ian walk away from the laboratory, up the stairs and down the corridor.

Thankfully, Ian doesn’t take them into the reception; Mickey has no desire to see fucking Byron again. Instead, he leads them into a small office bearing a small bronze plaque on the door with the name ARUN CAMERON engraved upon it. The office is plain, with wooden walls and unattractive maroon carpet; a wooden desk sits in the centre of it, with a chair on either side. An uncomfortable-looking sofa is pushed against one wall, and books and papers are stacked haphazardly on a bookcase in the corner. A paper plate of decidedly limp-looking sandwiches sits on the desk along with a jug of water and two plastic cups.

“Romantic,” Mickey comments before he can stop himself. He bites his lip, feeling stupid.

“Wait for it,” Gallagher says with a smile. He goes over to a small cooler behind the desk and gives the handle a tug. It’s locked.

“Impressive,” Mickey says, amazed to find himself laughing. Ian grins, flipping him off, and rummages through the desk drawers until he finds a little silver key on a Powerpuff Girls keychain. Mickey snorts at the sight of it; Ian unlocks the fridge, heaving out a six-pack of Peroni.

“Lip told me the moron brings girls here,” Ian explains. “Figured he’d have a stash!”

He holds out a bottle to Mickey, who takes it, opening the cap on the edge of the desk and sitting down on one of Arun’s office chairs. The room smells faintly of air freshener and – Mickey wrinkles his nose, surprised – pot. He snorts.

“If it wasn’t for all this freaky memory shit, this would have to be the weirdest fucking thing I’ve done all week.”

Ian straightens up, popping the cap of his own beer. “What would?”

Mickey snorts again, taking a deep gulp from his bottle. “Drinking fancy-ass beer in some fancy-ass office – in _college_ – with Ian fucking Gallagher.”

“Yeah?” Ian says, laughing. He sits down on the sofa, elbows resting on his knees. “Having a beer with me is that weird?”

“Yeah, well, it would have been, like, before.” Did he just say ‘like’? The fuck is wrong with him.

Ian doesn’t seem to notice. “I guess I wasn’t even on your radar before all this went down, right?” His tone is half amused, half regretful.

Mickey looks over to him, his eyes traveling from Gallagher’s auburn head, down his broad chest, right to his large boots. He grins. “Wouldn’t say that I _never_ noticed you, Gallagher.”

A smile spreads across Ian’s face. “Oh, yeah?”

“Shut up,” Mickey says gruffly, but he’s still grinning like a fucking moron. “Drink your beer, Gallagher. Fancy shit like this.”

Ian throws his bottle cap at him, which Mickey dodges. Then Gallagher’s expression is serious. “You feeling better?” he asks.

Mickey swallows another mouthful of beer, which he has to admit is pretty damn good. “What kind of dumbass question is that?” he says, trying and failing to sound nonchalant. “I just fucking beat the shit out of you.”

“I’m still here,” Gallagher points out reasonably.

“Fuck knows why,” Mickey replies, tipping his bottle back to get the last of his Peroni. He shakes the empty bottle at Ian. “Refill?”

Ian looks down at his own bottle, which is still half-full. “I’m good,” he says. Mickey shrugs, getting up to grab another one. The glass is cool against his hand, and Mickey realizes he’s sweating. Is it fear? He wasn’t kidding when he said how fucking weird this whole situation is. Ian fucking Gallagher, sitting there on that stupid sofa asking the guy who beat him up if he’s okay? It’s some serious level of fucked up. He stays by the cooler, his back to Ian, trying to calm himself down. His hands are shaking.

“Mickey?” As usual, Ian sounds fucking _concerned_.

Mickey turns around abruptly, putting the Peroni he’s holding onto the desk. A memory is surfacing; not a new one, created by the change – he’s pushing those ones back – but an old one. A time when they were together, happy and carefree. He grins at Gallagher.

“You wanna chit chat some more or you wanna get on me?”

It takes Gallagher about fifteen seconds to remember, and then he’s smiling too, an enormous shit-eating grin that’s so much better than any of the smiles Mickey’s seen on him in his memories because it’s _real_ , it’s right here in front of him and it’s really happening to real-life, this-reality him. Ian stands up in one fluid motion, putting his beer on the desk, and walks around the chairs to face Mickey.

“I want to get on you,” he says, his voice a low, deep growl, and the sound of it sends shivers running down Mickey’s spine.

“You just going to talk about it, or…?” Mickey lets his voice trail off, his eyes an invitation. Ian smiles, if possible, even wider, and one large hand slides up Mickey’s arm. Goosebumps follow his touch, which Mickey pretends not to notice.

“Take your shirt off,” Ian commands, and Mickey scrambles to obey, his fingers trembling as he wrenches the hem up and over his head. He’s wearing a tank top underneath, which he peels away just as quickly. Ian’s eyes travel appreciatively over Mickey’s chest, and despite himself Mickey feels a swell of pride.

“Holy shit,” Ian mutters. He grips Mickey’s upper arms, pushing him backwards until his back hits the wall with a thud. Mickey’s heart is pounding, so hard that he’s certain Gallagher must be able to hear it. They’re inches apart, Ian’s clothed chest pressed up against Mickey’s clothed one, and then Gallagher’s hands slip downwards to grab Mickey’s wrists, lifting them above his head and pinning them to the wall.

Unexpectedly, Gallagher leans in, but instead of kissing Mickey’s mouth, he presses his lips to Mickey’s collarbone, his teeth scraping gently against it and leaving Mickey gasping. He bends lower, sucking on one of Mickey’s nipples, and again his teeth close briefly on it. Mickey feels a whining sound escape him, and immediately struggles against Gallagher’s hold on him, turning his face away in embarrassment.

Gallagher pulls back, but his hands stay firmly in place, preventing Mickey from moving. His eyes meet Mickey’s, assessing; then he swoops in to trail a line of biting kisses up Mickey’s jawline. The feeling is indescribable; intense and shivery, unlike any of the quick, dirty fucks Mickey’s ever had before, and also unlike any of his previous encounters with Ian in that it’s _real_. Mickey clamps his lips against the gasps and moans threatening to break out of him, determined not to humiliate himself further, but he doesn’t struggle any more.

Ian’s breath is like a whisper against his cheek as he makes his way to Mickey’s ear, sucking on the lobe. Then he says, quietly: “That’s really fucking hot.”

“Wh-what?” Mickey manages, his voice a breathless gasp, because Gallagher is licking the sensitive area where his neck meets his hairline, just beneath his ear. He feels Gallagher chuckling softly.

“Those noises you make,” Ian says, kissing Mickey’s neck again. “Getting me hard.”

Just hearing that makes Mickey’s cock twitch; oddly enough, he hasn’t even been thinking about getting fucked until now, because just feeling Gallagher’s mouth on him has been enough to occupy every part of his brain. But now… Now, it’s _all_ he can think about.

“You gonna do something about it?” he pants. He shakes his right hand underneath Ian’s grip, and Ian laughs, releasing it. His hand cups Mickey’s face instead, his thumb stroking Mickey’s chin.

Mickey reaches down to Gallagher’s belt, fumbling with the buckle; his left hand is still pinned to the wall, but eventually his fingers loosen the belt, Gallagher kissing his chin and neck all the while. The button of Ian’s pants pops open, and Mickey slides down the zipper. Gallagher is wearing checked boxers, and they bulge out of the front of his pants.

“Easy,” Ian murmurs. He releases Mickey’s other wrist, running his fingers down Mickey’s chest. “Take it easy.”

Mickey heaves a deep breath, trying to slow his thudding heartbeat. Take it easy? Ian might as well have told him to fly. He feels suddenly out of step, his face hot and flushed. Why does Ian want him to take it easy? Is he doing something wrong? He lets his hand drop from the waistband of Ian’s pants.

Ian pauses, seeming to notice Mickey’s change in mood. His hands are on Mickey’s waist, and despite his confusion Mickey still feels a thrill as they tighten around his body. Slowly, Ian leans forward, kissing Mickey on the mouth for the first time. His tongue slides into Mickey’s mouth, and Mickey just kind of fucking loses it, going weak against the wall, his knees buckling. Ian presses against him, holding him up.

“You okay?” Gallagher asks as they finally draw apart. Mickey nods breathlessly. Gallagher kisses him again, and a few more minutes are spent in a hot haze that sends lightening straight to Mickey’s cock.

When he pulls away, Gallagher kisses Mickey’s neck again, trailing down his chest, going lower, kissing his stomach, and making Mickey tremble and groan softly under his breath. Ian is kneeling on the thin carpet by now, undoing Mickey’s pants and pulling them down with his boxers in one.

Mickey is rock-hard, sweating as Ian wraps a hand around his cock. Gallagher looks up at him, a sly grin on his face as he moves his hand achingly slowly. Mickey – there’s really no other word for it – _whimpers_. Ian’s fingers are tight around him, his thumb stroking over the leaking tip. Lights are flashing in Mickey’s brain, and he’s barely able to form a coherent thought, although if he had been able to, he might have thought that this was ten thousand times better than any stupid fucking memory. Ten thousand times better than anything he could have imagined. This life, _this_ Mickey, gets to experience this.

Gallagher increases his pace, and Mickey’s head tips back against the wall, his mouth falling open. Then, just when he thinks there is nothing more Ian fucking Gallagher can possibly do better than this, Gallagher’s lips close around the head of his dick, and the world just fucking implodes on itself.

Gallagher’s tongue is licking long lines up his cock, lapping at his balls, sucking them into his mouth and then returning to the shaft, drawing it into his mouth in long, deep pulls that have Mickey thrashing against the wall, oblivious to the low, desperate moans falling out of his mouth.

“Fuck, Gallagher,” he groans. “Fuck, fuck!”

The pressure builds, every feeling and thought Mickey has ever had flooding downwards as Ian sucks him, building and building until—

“What the fuck, Gallagher?” Mickey cries furiously, as Ian lets his cock drop out of his mouth, the intense rushing feeling dying down just a second too soon. Ian grins up at him.

“Want more?” he asks lazily, standing up.

Mickey is shaking with anger and frustration. “Fuck you, Gallagher,” he says bitterly.

Ian laughs, putting one hand on the wall behind Mickey’s head and leaning in so close that Mickey is suddenly breathless. “That’s what I was thinking,” he says. Mickey opens his mouth, stutters slightly, and then closes it again.

Slowly, only his ragged breathing giving away his own desire, Gallagher takes Mickey’s wrists again, moving backwards towards the couch. Mickey shuffles along with him as best he can with his pants around his ankles. Ian pushes Mickey onto it, standing in front of him like his own personal G.I. Joe, the tight army issue shirt straining across his muscular chest. Mickey just watches him, feeling his cheeks growing hotter, and resisting the urge to tug on his leaking cock. He’ll never hold out at this rate.

Without taking his eyes off Mickey, Ian lifts the hem of his shirt, and then draws it up fluidly over his head, tossing it into a corner. His smile is salacious, his expression… hungry. For a moment, he just stands there, watching Mickey. Mickey just fucking watches him back, because what kind of moron wouldn’t?

Ian tugs at the waistband of his pants, which are still open from Mickey’s earlier fumbling, and pushes them down to his ankles. Then he looks down, and gives a short, sudden laugh.

“Guess I should have planned this better,” he says ruefully, shaking one booted foot. “Smooth, huh?”

To his surprise, Mickey realizes that Gallagher is actually _embarrassed_ ; maybe he’s not as calm as he seems. Mickey says, his tongue licking his own lips: “It’s hot, man.”

Ian grins at him. “You do yours and I’ll do mine,” he suggests, gesturing towards Mickey’s feet. Mickey nods, and they both scramble to remove shoes, socks and pants. Mickey finishes first, and sits watching as Gallagher attempts to peel off his socks without falling over. He turns his back to Mickey in the process, and Mickey is treated to the delightful sight of Ian’s ass – albeit still clothed in boxers – shaking like a fucking go-go dancer.

At last, Gallagher turns to face him again, grinning like a loon. His fingers pause at the waistband of his boxers, and he looks over to Mickey with a teasing expression in his eyes. Mickey decides that enough is enough.

“Okay, Gallagher,” he says loudly; Ian looks taken aback, but not displeased, by the authoritative tone in his voice. “Come here.”

Slowly, Ian walks over to him; Mickey takes the boxers in both hands, and wrenches them down. Gallagher’s cock springs out, coincidentally just around Mickey’s mouth level. Now it’s his turn to look teasing.

He grasps the base of it, but doesn’t move his hand, instead placing his lips just by the tip without touching them. His eyes flick up to meet Ian’s; Gallagher’s gaze is scorching. “You want it, Gallagher?” Mickey asks softly. “Tell me you want it.”

Mickey doesn’t know where his confidence is coming from, but the burning, feverish look in Ian’s eyes makes him feel so full of pride and happiness that he thinks he might just fucking explode from it. _He’s_ doing this, _his_ words, _his_ touch is undoing Gallagher like this, pulling him apart. Ian wants _him_.

As if in answer to his thoughts, Ian stutters quickly: “I want it. I want it.”

Mickey lets his tongue touch the head of Ian’s cock, and then withdraws. “Yeah?” he says. “Fucking ask for it, then.” He grins. “Fucking _beg_ for it, Gallagher.”

There’s a pause, and Mickey can hear Ian’s breath hitch in his chest. “P-please,” he stammers. “Fucking… please, Mick. Fuck, fuck, I fucking…” He trails off, but it’s enough for Mickey, to hear this confirmation of just how much Ian wants him. He bends his head, and sucks Ian into his mouth.

Ian draws in a sharp breath, and then words are tumbling out of his mouth, around moans and gasps and whines and every other kind of noise that Mickey would have been embarrassed to let slip out, but which sound pretty fucking hot when he considers that it’s _him_ drawing them out of Ian, so maybe Gallagher really meant it when he said that to Mickey after all.

“Fuck, Mick, fucking… Jesus, this is fucking amazing, you’re fucking…. Shit, holy shit, Mick! Oh God, fuck, do that again, fuck…”

Mickey does do it again, licking a long, broad line from the base of Ian’s shaft to the tip and back down again, and as he does so he feels Ian’s hand reaching blindly down for his own cock, igniting all Mickey’s pent-up longing with a touch. The angle’s awkward but neither of them care, and then Ian lets out a long, low moan and Mickey surprises himself with a loud gasping yell, and they’re both coming in sticky streams all over the couch.

In all the mess and rush, Mickey’s ended up slumped on the floor, and for a while he just lies there, panting. Ian slides down to lie beside him, one hand casually resting on Mickey’s chest, and Mickey looks over to him and grins.

“Fuck me, man…” he says breathlessly.

“Maybe later,” Ian puffs. “You got smokes?”

Mickey snags his pants from the crumpled heap they lie in a few feet away, and pulls out a packet and lighter. Ian struggles up to a sitting position, on the floor with his back against the couch, and Mickey goes to retrieve their Peronis. They sit in a comfortable silence for ten minutes or so, smoking and drinking and occasionally just looking at each other and exchanging awkward smiles.

Eventually, Mickey says: “You think they’ll be looking for us?”

Gallagher waves a hand. “Who gives a shit?” he says, and then laughs at Mickey’s surprise. “What, we’re not allowed a break? Where are those fucking sandwiches?”

Right, the sandwiches. Mickey suddenly realizes he’s fucking _starving_. Ian gets the plate and brings it back to the floor, and between them they devour the slightly soggy BLTs in a few minutes. Ian takes a long drag on his cigarette, and then unexpectedly laughs.

“Man, if you’d told me this morning what I’d be doing today…” He exhales, blowing a long stream of smoke into the room to mix with Arun’s illicit pot. Vaguely, Mickey wonders if he actually keeps it in here – maybe later on they can explore.

“Yeah, me too, man,” he agrees, taking a swig of beer. He looks sideways at Ian, who is in the process of stubbing out his cigarette on the leg of one of Arun’s office chairs, and smirks. “Hey, uh… you ready to go again, or do you need some—”

Ian tackles him, beer slopping everywhere, and wrestles him to the floor. And yeah, maybe Mickey needs to stop repeating remembered lines from their past, but fuck it, Gallagher is laughing, his cock is hard, and maybe right now there are more fucking important things going on than the world imploding.


	12. Kickstarts

 

 

Mickey blinks, groggily, and realizes that he’s been asleep. Moreover, he’s been asleep on Ian Gallagher’s chest; he’s wrapped between Gallagher and the back of the sofa, half-squashed but still comfortable, with his head resting on one of Gallagher’s large pectorals. Mickey can’t decide what’s unsettling him the most – the fact that he fell asleep on someone’s chest without it being weird, or the fact that it doesn’t bother him.

He pushes himself up, and Ian stirs, his eyes opening. The room around them is dark, the desk half-hidden in shadow, with a faint gleam of moonlight illuminating the bookcase on the opposite wall. Mickey wonders what time it is; it’s the second time he’s slept today, and it’s not as if the work they’ve been doing is quick. It must be late evening, at least.

“Hey.” Gallagher pushes himself up onto his elbow, dislodging Mickey, and Mickey pulls himself away hastily.

“Hey,” he says gruffly, sitting up. Ian smiles lazily.

“Think we should get back?” he asks.

Mickey shrugs. “I guess.” He hesitates. “Not sure I want to change anything else.”

Ian doesn’t say anything, and in the silence, Mickey feels the memories start to creep in. He’s been suppressing them until now; frankly, his activities with Ian over the last few hours have made it fucking easy. But now, in the quiet of the darkened office, they wash over him in an unstoppable wave.

The wedding. He shouldn’t be surprised that it went ahead; wasn’t that the whole fucking point? But still, remembering how it went down is… painful. The kiss, the sex, the whore walking between the haphazard rows of chairs with his father smiling in satisfaction… Ian, coming by the following day – he said it was to see Mandy, but Mickey knows it was really to give him one last chance to step up – and then Ian leaving.

“You left,” Mickey says thickly. Ian, who he now realizes has been absent-mindedly stroking his arm, stills.

“I’m here now,” he says. Then: “Sorry.”

Mickey shrugs stiffly. “Makes sense, after…” He stops. It’s not like he fucking expected Gallagher to stick around; he always deserved better than anything Mickey could give him. And then he’d beaten the crap out of him. What had he thought was going to happen?

So what if Ella had thought they would always come back together? The fuck did she know about it? Why would Ian come back?

Except he had come back. Mickey’s breathing hitches as he remembers; he _had_ come back. It had been weeks – _months_ – later, but he had come back. Mickey had gone to find him, dancing in some queer club and letting disgusting old queens cop a feel in return for whatever pills they gave him. He’d brought him home, and somehow they’d been together again.

“You… you came out for me.” Ian’s voice is cracked and shaking. Mickey gets a brief flash of his father hurling himself across The Alibi at him, of the crashing of a bottle on his head, of blood and pain and Ian drinking from a hipflask and grinning at him.

“Yeah,” he replies. His lips are suddenly very dry. “Didn’t see that coming, huh?”

“Nope,” Gallagher replies. He reaches out a freckled hand, taking Mickey’s tattooed one. “I never said at the time,” he says, slightly awkwardly. “Thanks.”

He never said at the time… because the next day, Mickey couldn’t get him out of bed. He’d been shivering under the covers for days, ignoring all the attempts of his family, Mickey and Mandy to get him up. It had lasted about two weeks, and then, slowly, he’d got himself out of bed, pretending he’d been sick, refusing to discuss the episode. And Mickey, with Fiona’s warnings about bipolar disease ringing in his ears, went along with him, figuring that Ian was a grown-ass man and could decide for himself if something was wrong.

He can feel Ian’s fingers tightening around his hand; he must be remembering those months as well. They’d settled into an oddly domestic routine, he, Ian and Svetlana; taking care of Yevgeny – fucking ridiculous name, but the thought of his son brings an odd lump to Mickey’s throat – and living in Terry’s house like one big happy fucking family.

“This is fucked up,” Mickey says. Ian gives a deep, unhappy chuckle; Mickey can guess what he’s thinking. ‘Fucked up’ doesn’t cover the half of it.

“You stole my son,” Mickey says. He thinks he ought to sound angrier; he can still remember the relief when the policeman handed Yevgeny back to him. His fear, about what Ian might have done to him. But he can’t summon the anger; he was too scared about what was wrong with Ian.

“I’m sick.” The use of the present tense catches Mickey’s attention; he looks sharply at Ian, who is pulling himself up into a sitting position. He doesn’t let go of Mickey’s hand.

“No, you’re not,” Mickey says automatically. Then he pauses, frowning. “Fiona said—”

“She said I’m sick,” Ian says dully.

“You’re not sick _now_ ,” Mickey argues. “It’s a different… fuck, a different reality, right?”

Ian shrugs; he looks utterly miserable, Mickey realizes. “It’s like you said, about Mandy,” he says. “It still happened. And anyway, bipolar is fucking genetics. I must have always had it.”

“So how come you never acted like that in this world?” Mickey challenges.

“Usually something happens to set it off,” Ian answers distractedly. “Trauma, or some shit.”

“Me,” Mickey realizes, his heart sinking. “I set it off.”

Ian squeezes his hand. “Not your fault.”

“Fucking seems like it.”

“You didn’t know,” Ian replies. Mickey is too caught up to take comfort from that; more memories are spreading into his head, filling his brain with more conflicting timelines. His head is fucking killing him.

“We should go back,” he says, his voice stilted. He stands up, pushing Ian away from him, and whatever spell of peace and heat that they’ve had between them is broken. “The world still isn’t splitting, so we obviously got it wrong again, huh?”

“Two more memories,” Ian agrees miserably, starting to pull his clothes on.

Ella is waiting for them in the laboratory, as if it’s been minutes rather than hours that they’ve been away. Mickey wonders if she _ever_ takes a break; she looks as unruffled as ever, not a hair out of place. Behind her, Lip huffs a deep, long-suffering sigh.

“What’s your fucking problem?” Mickey challenges.

“You have a hickey on your neck,” Lip answers in a pained voice.

“Enough,” Ella interrupts. “Come on, boys.” She pins Lip with a particularly shrewd glare. “Try and stay professional.

Lip snorts, and Mickey thinks about arguing that they’re not exactly boys, but she’s already heading over to where Olivia and the professor are waiting, so he decides not to bother. Instinctively, he reaches for Ian’s hand, and is relieved when he feels it grip his firmly. Whatever happens next, at least they’ll be together.

“Well, hello again!” Olivia exclaims jubilantly as they sit down in the familiar plastic chairs. Lip snorts again, and for once Mickey agrees with the sentiment.

It’s a fresh pain, to relive the new memories again, having just gone over them with Ian; Olivia takes notes and nods seriously whenever they pause for breath. It’s not until they get to the part where Ian was committed that Mickey realizes that they’re telling the story _together_ ; he’ll say a few sentences, and Ian will jump in with the next part. It’s seamless, as if they rehearsed it.

Soulmates, indeed.

“So what happened after Ian was released?” Olivia asks. Even Lip is paying attention now, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. He must remember this too – he and Mickey had almost been companionable, back in those alternate memories – but he doesn’t say anything. This isn’t his story.

They carry on talking, explaining how their relationship changed, and for the first time, Mickey falters; it’s not easy to relive any of it, but talking about how different Ian became makes his tongue stick to the inside of his mouth. He stutters, and Ian’s fingers tighten around his hand.

“Sammi had me arrested,” Ian says to Olivia, and just like that, Mickey can speak again.

“Bitch,” he says. Lip laughs.

“Monica visited me while I was in jail,” Gallagher continues. “She wanted me to go with her.” He sneaks a look at Mickey. “Said no one would ever understand me.”

“Did you go with her?” Olivia asks gently.

“Fuck no!” Ian exclaims. “I came home to Mickey.” He stops. “I don’t get it! We were together, nothing bad happened, end of. Shouldn’t we be done?”

Ella, who has been standing behind Olivia without speaking the entire time they’ve been talking, moves forwards. She has a slightly pained expression on her usually-smooth face. “You weren’t well, Ian,” she says.

“You refused to take your meds,” Mickey remembers. “Said there was nothing wrong with you.”

Ian makes a frustrated noise. “There wasn’t!”

“Ian,” Mickey says, laying his free hand on Gallagher’s shoulder. “You stole my son.”

“You wouldn’t get help.” This comes, surprisingly, from Lip. “You just refused to believe you had a problem.”

Gallagher’s head drops. He half-turns in his seat, towards Mickey, and Mickey pulls him close. In that moment, there are no fucking scientists examining every move they make; Ian’s asshole brother could be a million lightyears away for all Mickey cares. He wraps his arms around his partner _(lover, family, you know?)_ and lets Ian’s head drop onto his shoulder.

“Don’t hate me.” Ian’s voice is muffled, reminiscent of Mickey’s own words earlier.

“Don’t be a fucking idiot,” Mickey says loudly. Then, because he knows Ian needs to hear it: “Never.”

There’s a long, long pause, during which Ian just rests his head – not crying, not talking – against Mickey’s collarbone. Then, at last, Ella speaks.

“I think it’s safe to say you need to get some help, Ian.”

Ian sits up, though his hands quickly find Mickey’s again. “Alright,” he says. “How? Even if I make myself take the meds, I’ll just come off them again.”

“You have to want to take them,” Olivia says softly. “It won’t work otherwise.” She stops, looking both embarrassed and upset; Mickey wonders what personal experience she has, to know that so intimately.

“How the fuck am I supposed to make myself want to take them?” Ian says angrily. “They made me feel like a fucking ghost. My dick was limp, it was like all my emotions had fucking disappeared… I hated them!”

Ella pulls out one of the plastic chairs and sits in front of them, one of her smooth legs folding automatically over the other. “Perhaps you need a catalyst.”

“Like what?” Mickey asks.

Lip sits up suddenly. “Monica,” he says. Ian turns to look at him.

“What?” he says.

“Monica,” Lip says again. “Our mom,” he adds for Olivia and Ella’s benefit, although Mickey would eat his own dick if they don’t already know that. “She came to see you, right? What if you went with her? Maybe seeing just how fucking bad it can get… maybe it would make you see.”

Ian appears to be considering this. “Maybe,” he says doubtfully.

“It can’t be that fucking simple,” Mickey argues.

“No, of course not,” Ella agrees. Ever since his outburst before the last memory, she seems to actually be listening to what Mickey has to say, which makes a nice fucking change. “It’ll probably still take time for Ian to accept, and even longer for anything to change. But it’s certainly a possible catalyst.”

Mickey thinks about his and Ian’s relationship. Not the smooth, perfect thing they have going here in the lab; the relationship they have in the alternate version of history. Ian off his meds. Svetlana refusing to allow him anywhere near Yevgeny. The constant highs and lows, the depression, Ian’s constant _anger_ , always directed at Mickey. Compared to how good they have it now… how can he not fight for a change?

“Fuck it,” he says. “Let’s give it a shot.” When everyone looks at him, he shrugs. “We’ve done okay so far, right?”

Ian seems to take heart from his words. “Yeah, okay,” he says. “Let’s fucking do this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick note - I haven't seen any of S06 yet, so although I *think* this could still be compatible with it, there may be sticking points. 
> 
> Thank you everyone for the lovely comments! Just one more chapter to go...


	13. The Other Side

 

 

Mickey might agree that it’s necessary, but that doesn’t make it any easier to watch; if Ian goes with Monica, he’ll be leaving him, no matter how quickly he comes back again. And so he stays just long enough to watch Ian – his head laden with the contraption of wires, and a brave smile on his face – stride into the mirror emitting puffs of gold smoke, and then he turns, runs away, and hides. Just like a fucking pussy.

He goes back to Arun’s office. It’s the only place he knows how to find that isn’t reception or the lab; he knows he’s being a fucking coward, but he just can’t face watching Ian making one more decision that leads him anywhere except to him. He’ll be back, Mickey knows, and hopefully seeing Monica will be the catalyst that gets him back on his meds, but right now he just doesn’t fucking feel like being surrounded by people in white coats.

He’s barely sat down on the couch that, less than half an hour ago, he and Gallagher fucked on, when the door creaks open. Mickey springs to his feet immediately.

Arun walks in.

“The fuck are you doing here?” Mickey growls.

“It’s my office,” Arun points out, his tone somewhat petulant. “What are _you_ doing here?”

Mickey lowers himself slowly back onto the couch. “Needed some fucking peace and quiet,” he says. Then, belligerently: “That alright with you?”

Arun doesn’t answer, wrinkling his nose and looking around. “It smells like sex in here.” His eyes narrow at Mickey. “You didn’t!”

Out of all the myriad of decisions Mickey’s made, and remade, and relived and rehashed, over the last day, this is one he doesn’t regret at all. He shrugs unrepentantly. “What did you expect?”

“Uh… for you to have some fucking respect!” Arun sounds ridiculous when he swears, like a child trying to sound grown-up. Mickey just snorts.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Arun says sniffily. He sighs, and walks over to the chair in front of his desk, beginning to sit down. Then he spots the empty beer bottles. “You drank my Peroni!”

“Yup,” Mickey says, letting his lips smack together. “Fucking good beer, man, you should be proud.”

Arun rolls his eyes, but thankfully, he doesn’t offer any more objections. Instead, he says: “Didn’t you want to watch Ian changing the memory?”

“No,” Mickey says emphatically. He doesn’t really know why he’s still here talking to this chump, except that he doesn’t want to go back to the lab, and really, stupid hair aside, Arun’s not so bad. Just some posh fucker, out of his depth.

Arun nods like he understands, although Mickey can tell he doesn’t. “Well,” he says after a minute of silence. “Is anything changing yet?”

Ian left. That change, Mickey can feel down to his bones; whatever’s going on in Ian’s memories, that part has set itself in stone. He can still _feel_ the fucking panic, not knowing where Ian had gone after he’d left with Monica from jail, wondering if he’d ever come back.

“He rang me,” he says, surprising himself by actually answering Arun. He did the same when Byron asked him questions; he must be getting fucking soft.

“What did he say?” Arun asks.

Mickey shrugs. “Told me he was home.” Mickey had been asleep when he got the call, but as soon as he saw who was calling, he was awake in a second. He’d ran over to Ian’s house, ran like the cops were after him, like his life depended on it, his jacket flapping around him, his breath coming in short bursts, because Ian was home, and Ian wanted to see him, and fuck if he wasn’t too far gone to do anything else except anything Ian wanted.

And then…

“No!” The words comes out of him in a violent growl, and Mickey’s on his feet before he realizes what’s happened. Arun looks startled, and slightly nervous; as well he fucking should be, because Mickey’s suddenly angrier than he’s ever been in his entire fucking life, and his life is one that has included a lot of fucking anger.

“No fucking way,” he states baldly.

“What? What happened?” Arun is kind of shrinking into the chair, the moonlight illuminating his pale, frightened face.

It’s the wrong audience. Arun isn’t the person Mickey needs to be directing this rage towards. He whirls around, striding purposefully out of the office, and then he’s running, running just as hard as he had when he answered Ian’s call, because Ian is fucking _his_ , and no fucking scientists get to stand around and say otherwise.

Faces turn towards him as he pelts into the laboratory, but he ignores them, heading straight to the circle of mirrors in the middle of the room. He can see Ella, he can see Lip, but most importantly, he can see Ian, standing shakily in the ring while the researchers remove the wires from his head.

“No fucking way!” Mickey shouts again, and Ian looks at him sharply. His expression is imploring, sad, desperate, but for once Mickey doesn’t care. He’s talking to Ella.

“Mickey—” Ella begins, but he overrides her.

“Don’t you fucking dare!” he bellows. “You fucking did this, no fucking way!”

Ella opens her mouth to answer, looking confused – somewhere in the back of his brain, he realizes that she won’t know, yet, what the results of her decision were – when suddenly, the room shakes. The entire floor quivers, and people scream as coffee cups and stacks of files fall from desks and cabinets. Then, just as suddenly as it started, the motion stops.

Mickey skids to a halt, right in front of Ella and Lip. “What was that?” he says bitingly.

“I don’t know,” Ella says. It’s so out of character for her to admit that that for a second Mickey loses his wrath. But not for long.

“You were fucking _wrong_ ,” he tells her loudly. Ian has managed to extricate himself from the headpiece by now, and he runs over to Mickey. Mickey ignores him, his eyes on Ella.

“Wrong about what?” she asks cautiously. Her gaze flickers over to Ian. “What happened?”

“Mickey, I’m so sorry—” Ian begins, but Mickey waves a hand impatiently.

“It’s not your fucking fault.” His eyes narrow at Ella. “It’s _hers_. It was _her_ idea.”

She stares at him. “What was?”

“You mean Monica?” Lip interjects. “That was my fucking idea, so if you’re going to yell at someone, make it me.”

“No problem,” Mickey snarls. “He fucking _left_!”

“Yeah, well, we knew he would,” Lip says. Then, slowly, his face changes. He’s remembering too. Good. “Oh, shit,” he says quietly.

“Yeah,” Mickey barks hoarsely. Suddenly, the anger is gone, and there in its place is the deepest well of sadness in the world. Hasn’t he been through enough? Hasn’t he dealt with enough shit in his life? Ian… him and Ian… Can’t that be the one thing, the _one_ thing, he gets to keep?

“ _What happened_?” Ella’s voice is firm now. Mickey transfers his gaze to her.

“He broke up with me,” he says hollowly.

There’s a silence.

“I’m sorry,” Ian says brokenly. He tries to put a hand on Mickey’s shoulder, but Mickey flinches away. He knows it’s irrational – knows that this Ian wants him – but he can’t help feeling the utter despair of Ian’s rejection as if it were this Ian that handed it out to him.

“I did everything for you,” he says quietly. “I came out for you. I got my ass handed to me for you.”

“I know,” Ian says. There’s another silence, longer than the first.

“Okay,” Ella says, clearly trying to take control of the situation. “Okay, I think it’s best if we—”

Her words are cut off by another enormous rumble; the ground is quaking beneath Mickey’s feet, stronger than before, and he’s almost knocked to the floor. Only Ian’s hands, reaching for his shoulders, steady him, and this time he doesn’t shake them off.

The earthquake ceases, just as abruptly as it had the first time, and to Mickey’s amazement, a wide smile spreads across Ella’s face. “I think it’s working,” she whispers softly.

Mickey stares at her. “Working?”

She turns to him, and for the first time, she actually looks… excited? “I think you did it!” she exclaims. “I think that’s the world righting itself!”

“No!” Mickey says quickly. “There’s still one more mirror. We can’t be done.”

Ella shrugs. “I told you we might be off with our calculations,” she says. She looks around, positively beaming.

“No, no way!” Mickey shouts. “We have to fucking change this!”

Now she looks at him. “Mickey, we can’t,” she says. “This is it. You did it, you and Ian. You brought the world back to rights again.”

“You said we were supposed to be together!” he roars. Fear is curling around his chest. Surely, surely, the way they had ended can’t be _the_ end? Surely there’s another memory to change, one more part of the past to put back together?

“Maybe we were wrong,” Ella says, her voice sympathetic, but unable to completely hide the obvious pleasure. As she speaks, the room shakes again; Mickey just lets the motion push him to the ground. What is there fucking left for him, without Ian?

“We have to change it,” he says miserably.

“We’ll fix it now.” It’s Ian, crouching beside him, helping him up. He leans forward and kisses Mickey, briefly, on the mouth. “We’ll be together in this world. Who the fuck cares about that one, anyway?”

Ella is looking at them with such an expression of pity that Mickey barks at her: “What?”

“Mickey, Ian…” she says gently, still eying them sympathetically. “When the two worlds crash back together, you won’t remember any of this at all. I’m sorry, I thought you understood. You’ll have saved the world, but no one will know you did it. Not even you. It will be as if this reality never existed.”

Her words hang in the air. Mickey just stares at her, his mouth open; even Lip looks somewhat incredulous. Or maybe that’s his pity-face, too. Mickey honestly can’t tell the fucking difference at this point.

Mickey finds his voice. “We’re changing it.” His words are surprisingly strong, given the utter despair rolling through him. He’s fighting hard not to cry, which is fucking ridiculous, he’s a Milkovich – but then, he’s a Milkovich losing his fucking soulmate, so maybe it makes a little bit of sense.

“Mickey, no, we can’t,” Ella says patiently.

“There’s still a mirror left!” Mickey shouts. He gestures over to the mirrors to prove it, and then they all stop talking.

The sixth mirror, the only one that no one has accessed, has a swirling, eddying stream of blue mist curling out of it.

“What _is_ that?” Ian demands. His face is white, his hands shaking on Mickey’s upper arms.

“That’s… that’s not possible…” Ella murmurs.

“The fuck is it, though?” Lip asks, moving closer. Other researchers are noticing it, now; the spiky-haired Asian man is checking his computer, a frown creasing his face. “Why is it blue instead of gold?”

“We can change it,” Mickey breathes.

“Mickey, _no_ ,” Ella says firmly. “I don’t know what’s going on over there, but it’s over.” Another little rumble seems to confirm her words. When it finishes, she carries on talking as though nothing had happened. “The world is cracking, Mickey. We’re about to go back. You’re about to forget everything that’s happened here, and you’re going to go on living your life. Maybe you’ll find your way back to Ian in the future.”

“I’m in prison, you fucking moron,” Mickey snarls. “I’m not going anywhere for ten to fifteen fucking _years_.”

He turns to look at Ian, because where is he, now, in the alternate version of history that Ella seems so fucking certain is the best one?

“Still living at home,” Ian says. He adds, morosely: “Just waiting to fuck up again.”

That fucking settles it. Quickly, so quickly that he takes Ian aback, he kisses him, pressing his lips up against Ian’s mouth in a fleeting gesture that breaks his heart. Then, without looking back, without thinking about it, he fucking _runs_. Because that’s what he does for Ian fucking Gallagher.

Lip and Ella are shouting after him, but he ignores them, jumping over the barriers into the ring of mirrors and lights, and without a second glance at the headwear, at the switches and dials and computers, he runs headlong into the doorway of blue mist.

It swirls around him, just as the gold stuff used to do, and Mickey blinks, moving his feet, one in front of the other. This is different from the other memories he’s changed; he can’t exactly put his finger on why, but the atmosphere feels charged, somehow, in a way he’s not used to. Then, just as he’s taking another step forward, he hears his name being called.

“Mickey!” It’s Ian. Ian followed him in here, into the unknown, because taking risks for each other is what they do best. Mickey waits for Ian to catch him up, clutching his large freckled hand like a life raft, and together they step forward into the fog.

Slowly, it begins to dissipate around them, and a wide, clear sky materializes above their heads. The ground is thick with grass, slightly wilted in the heat, and as trees and benches and teenagers with footballs and ciders begin to appear, Mickey finally places it.

“We’re at the park,” he says wonderingly. It shouldn’t be such a surprise – it’s just the fucking park, after all – but somehow it is. He’s here, at the park, with Ian. The sun is high in the sky, not a cloud to be seen, and a light breeze ruffles the leaves on the willow trees by the pond. Mickey can feel the heat of summer pressing down on him already, and pushes up his shirt sleeves. 

“Not just us,” Ian says, and his voice is shocked. Mickey turns to look where Ian is pointing; behind him stand two men, talking. One of them is shorter, dark-haired, with his back to Mickey, and the other…

The other is Ian. Tall, red-haired, freckled and fucking beautiful.

He wheels around, looking at _his_ Ian. “How can you be there?” he gasps.

“How can _you_ be there?” Ian returns. Mickey looks back at the men, and sure enough, the shorter one is himself.

He’s dressed differently; his pants are still a little scuffed around the hems, but his shirt is a smart black button-down, and his shoes are fucking shiny. Ian, on the hand, looks exactly the same; long grey sweatpants, with a green tank top. His hair is cut much shorter, though, and his face… it looks older, somehow.

“Hey!” Mickey says loudly, stepping towards himself. Neither he nor Ian turn around. “Hey!” he says, even louder.

“I don’t think they can hear us,” Ian says. He’s looking at the pair of them strangely; suddenly, he detaches himself from Mickey’s grasp, and moves to look at the other Mickey’s face. The other Mickey doesn’t flinch, not even when Ian leans right into him. He looks through Ian as though he isn't even there.

“Mickey,” his Ian says. “Mickey, I think this is—”

He’s cut off by the sound of Mickey - the other Mickey - talking. The real Mickey just stares in shock; seeing  _himself_ speak is beyond weird. His counterpart yawns, smiles widely, and says: "Man, Jordan is kicking my fucking ass."

Before Mickey has time to wonder who Jordan is, the other Ian laughs. His laugh sounds exactly the same, although his voice, when he speaks, is just slightly deeper than Mickey is used to.

"That's what you get for hiring teenagers," he says lazily. He reaches forward, pushing the hair out of Mickey's bright blue eyes. Mickey thinks - and then is shocked with himself at the thought - that he actually looks kind of fucking handsome. "Old man," Ian adds.

"Fuck you," Mickey replies, although he's still smiling.

The real Mickey turns to look at the real Ian. "I don't remember any of this," he says in confusion. "Did you—”

“Dad!” Mickey turns to stare; running down the path towards them is a small boy, perhaps eleven or twelve years old, with dark hair flapping around his face as he dashes over. He's skinny and pale, with expensive-looking running shoes on.

The boy heads straight for the other Mickey, and to Mickey’s absolute shock, his other self catches the child and lifts him into the air.

“Hey, you,” the other Mickey says. He’s smiling, and there’s something about that smile… there are lines in the corners of his mouth that aren’t on Mickey’s real-life mouth now. His hair is slicked back, his eyes light. He says: “You okay, bud?”

“Yeah,” the boy says as the other Mickey puts him back down on the ground. His attention turns to the other Ian. “Hi, Ian!”

The other Ian ruffles his hair. “Hey, Yev,” he says.

_Yev_? Mickey’s head is whirling. He swings around to look at Ian, who has the exact same deer-in-headlights expression on his face that Mickey imagines he’s sporting. Mickey turns back to look at the boy. His skin is as white as Mickey's, his hair a similar mop of black, and his eyes the exact same shade of blue. But his nose... He has Svetlana's nose, and her smooth cheeks and feminine eyelashes. He's  _beautiful_.

“Ian,” Mickey says. “Is this…”

“I think it’s the future,” Ian says. Mickey just gapes at him, even though he said pretty much what Mickey was thinking.

“But… how…”

He trails off as a slender, attractive woman approaches them. It's unmistakeably Svetlana; her hair is cut into a bob, her fringe longer, but she's otherwise essentially unchanged. There's a thick golden chain hung around her neck. As she comes over to the older Mickey, she smiles, and he leans forward and kisses her on the cheek.

She returns the kiss with a one-armed hug, her long maroon nails clasping the back of Mickey's neck. "Sorry we are late," she says. She gives Yevgeny a pointed look. "Someone could not find his favourite pyjamas."

Mickey laughs. "No worries," he says. His eyes flicker over to Ian; Svetlana follows his gaze, and her mouth sets in a line.

“Orange boy,” she says guardedly.

Ian nods back rather formally. “Svetlana,” he returns. Svetlana gives a curt nod, and turns her attention back to Mickey.

“Okay, have fun,” she says. The dark-haired child dashes over to her, hugging around the middle; she looks into his face. “Bedtime is nine, no later, yes?”

“Yeah, okay,” Yevgeny agrees happily. “Bye, mom!”

She kisses the top of his head, and strides away with a small wave to Mickey. As soon as she’s gone, Yev turns straight back to Mickey. “Can I go on the swings?”

“Sure,” Mickey tells him, and he’s off like a shot, straight to the other side of the park where Mickey knows there’s a little play park. The other Ian laughs.

“He’s getting so big,” he comments.

“Yeah,” the other Mickey agrees. He turns suddenly to Ian. “Hey, man, I know it’s not easy with Svetlana…”

Ian takes his hand. “It’s cool, I get it,” he says. His voice is calm, peaceable, a million miles away from the aggression Mickey remembers from their shared past.

They're having a moment, and while it's going on, the real Mickey looks at the real Ian. “The fuck is going on here?” he asks.

Ian smiles, tentatively. “I think we’re happy, Mick,” he says. He turns to look at the couple walking leisurely along the path behind Yevgeny. “Look at us.”

Mickey opens his mouth to answer, but before he can, his older counterpart suddenly stops in his tracks. He turns, and for a moment, his eyes rest on the exact spot where the real Mickey is standing. They rove around, as if searching for something. For a second, even though he knows it can't be possible, Mickey could swear that the older version of himself knows he's standing there. Knows he's being watched.

“You okay?” the older Ian asks, putting a hand on Mickey’s shoulder.

The other Mickey straightens up, looking back at Ian. “Yeah,” he says, shaking his head. He looks into Ian’s eyes, and whatever he may have thought was behind him is clearly forgotten. “I love you,” he says. The real Mickey feels tears - yeah, fucking  _tears_ \- prick at the corner of his eyes. How long had it taken him to be able to say that? Even then it had been fucking hard, but this Mickey just lets the words fall out of his mouth as though it's as easy as breathing. Maybe it is.

Ian smiles, and it’s a smile of true perfection, reaching every inch of him. The real Mickey watches, his heart thumping, and Ian doesn't disappoint. “I love you too,” he says. In all their memories, every single version of history that they've lived and changed and done over again and again, Ian has never said those words to him. And now he is.

It's enough. After everything they've been through, hearing them say those words to each other is enough.

Blue mist is starting to curl around them again, and Mickey knows they don’t have long, knows it’s nearly over, knows the whole world is about to crash into something else, but it’s okay, because he has this future waiting for him, and it’s a future where he and Ian are together. Maybe he has no idea how they get here, but they _do_ get here, and that’s all that matters.

“We’re happy,” he tells the real Ian, _his_ Ian, and he brings their mouths smashing together, and it’s glorious, it’s wonderful, it’s perfect, and the blue mist is descending, and the world is disappearing, but who gives a fuck about that? His mouth is on Ian’s, they’re together, they’re kissing, and now everything is white, and it’s over, it’s ending, but he doesn’t give a shit, because they’re fucking _happy_ , and then the whiteness overtakes everything and he’s gone, he’s gone, the world is gone.

 

 

* * *

* * *

* * *

 

 

Another day, another night. The orange jumpsuit is discarded, and Mickey lies in his place on the top bunk, staring out of the tiny window up at the sky. His cellmate is already snoring, oblivious to the snuffles and grunts of other inmates, and the swinging torch of the guard doing night checks. Mickey’s used to it, but he can’t sleep. It’s just another night without Ian.

Above him, the stars twinkle in the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my God, can't believe I've got here - my first ever completed fic! Thank you, thank you so much to everyone who commented and enjoyed it - it's been very up and down, but I've loved writing it! An especially huge thank you to likingwhatilikedontmakemeabitch for the fantastic artwork :)
> 
> Let me know what you think on tumblr! http://13callieb.tumblr.com/
> 
> Love you all <3


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